The memory of last year’s District 11 6A championship is something Freedom’s football program doesn’t want to reflect on too much. Parkland dismantled the Patriots 35-10 on a cold night at Cottingham Stadium, but the opportunity to write a new chapter in this series between Lehigh Valley perennial contenders comes again this weekend when Freedom hosts Parkland at 7 p.m. Friday night.

Both teams enter the contest coming off week one victories, as the Pates grinded their way to a 14-0 win at Stroudsburg.

“We played hard and won the turnover and penalty battle, which was good but had some drives stall,” said head coach Jason Roeder. “We had a 14-play and 10-play drive that didn’t result in points so need to finish better. Still working through our rotations and some sloppiness but the effort was there.”

The Pates ran for 182 yards, led by Noah Pierre’s 76 yards on the ground and a third quarter touchdown. Quarterback Chase Walker was 8-of-17 for 88 yards. He put Freedom on the board with a four-yard rushing score just before halftime.

It might not have been the prettiest Freedom victory, but it was a win nonetheless for a new group looking to build heading to this week’s game against a loaded Parkland team, who walloped Pocono Mountain West 54-7 last week.

“The guys making their first starts got a little taste of a Friday night football game,” Roeder said. “You’d like to think that experience will help them get better. We got to clean up what we do. Parkland’s the defending champs and we cant afford to make mistakes against them. The championship game last year wasn’t a fun one to look back on and hopefully we have some answers for it.”

Liberty came away with the same score line, scoring two fourth quarter touchdowns to hold off an improved Dieruff team 14-0. Head coach Shawn Daignault is navigating a young roster this season, but was pleased to see his group grab an opening game victory.

“Overall, pretty happy with it once we saw the film,” Daignault said. “Very few mental errors. Thought we executed and ran the ball well and we were physical on defense. Saw some inexperience at quarterback position and hopefully we got some jitters out of their system. Came away with a lot of respect with Dieruff and what their staff has done.”

Gabe Green scored both of the Hurricane touchdowns last week, scoring from four and 37-yards out in the final quarter. He finished the day with 196 yards to lead a talented backfield. The ‘Canes have a quick turnaround this week with a Thursday night home opener against East Stroudsburg North. Getting off to a 2-0 start is something that hasn’t happened recently for the program, but Daignault is only concerned about the approach to this week.

“Its been awhile since we’ve been 2-0, but we talk about being 1-0 this week and our only focus is just this game,” he said. “There’s less time to get ready this week, so you’re not going to put in as many wrinkles. Just want to keep building on what we did last week.

“We started school on Monday and it’s a good feeling to walk around with a week one win, but they know we need to have a good week of practice. We need to be a much better team in week eight or nine than we are now.”