One honeymoon ends; Pritts hoping another begins at Southmoreland
ALVERTON – For Brian Pritts, the honeymoon is over. Pritts is hoping the honeymoon is just beginning for his Southmoreland High School football program. The fourth-year Scottie coach left the ranks of bachelors on Aug. 1, when he was married to Kristin Zieger, the daughter of Southmoreland athletic director Dennis Zieger. The newlyweds returned just in time for the start of official preseason drills on Aug. 11.
This year, the Scotties are returning to their roots. After eight seasons split between the Class AA Century and Interstate conferences, the Scotties are back in the Class AAA Keystone Conference.
Southmoreland was among nine original teams when the Keystone Conference was formed in 1972. The Scotties made their only trip to the WPIAL football playoffs as conference champions in 1979.
Pritts is familiar with the conference, since he was a wide receiver and safety for the Scotties from 1887 through 1989.
“We’re happy to be back in the Keystone Conference, especially since we have lot of natural rivalries with these schools in other sports,” Pritts said. “We play the same schools in basketball, soccer, track, baseball and softball.” Pritts knows from firsthand experience, as he has also served as coach of Southmoreland’s girls’ basketball program for the past decade.
Scottie fans that endured long trips to Washington, McGuffey and Waynesburg for the past several years will now face shorter drives.
“The conference is a lot more localized and fan friendly for us, especially with gas prices so high,” Pritts said. “Hopefully, this leads to nice crowds both home and away.” Southmoreland’s conference road trips will include Laurel Highlands, Albert Gallatin and Uniontown.
While the Scotties are expecting tough competition from their Keystone opponents, there’s no denying that the conference’s mathematics improve the team’s playoff chances.
While there were nine or 10 teams competing for three playoff berths in the Interstate Conference, the Keystone Conference includes seven teams that will vie for four post-season positions. The alignment allows for several non-conference games early in the schedule, and nearly all the teams will remain in playoff contention until the final game.
“Odds-wise, it will be better,” Pritts said. “It will be much nicer competing for four spots than to battle for three positions or hope to become a (Class) AA wild card team.”
Ironically, while the Scotties have moved up in classification, natural rival Mount Pleasant dropped to Class AA and into the Interstate Conference. The neighboring schools haven’t met on the football field since 1999, and the Interstate Conference alignment now has 10 teams, which allows no room for any non-conference games for Mount Pleasant.
The only way the teams could meet this season would be if both miss the playoffs and then agree to play a 10th game.
“Mount Pleasant-Southmoreland is a game that everyone in both communities wants to see,” Pritts said. “I truly believe we’ll play each other again in two years, when we have similar enrollment numbers for the next realignment.”