On Friday night, the North Schuylkill Spartans took their first step towards a District XI Championship and maybe a State title.
The elephant in the room at Ghosh Orthodontics Field at Spartan Stadium, Friday night was North Schuylkill's Jaden Leiby being injured during Week 10 but both the Spartans and the Pine Grove Cardinals had one goal Friday night, win this game to make it to the District XI Championship.
The game was a fresh match-up with both teams playing completely different schedules from one another.
For the first half, both teams started out slow as they looked to find their rhythm.
By half time, the Cardinals held a lead over the Spartans 14-12 and looked like had a chance to pull off the upset.
After some half time adjustments, the Spartans found their stride and would score 28 more points and held the the Cardinals to one score the entire second half.
The final score for the evening was 42-20 with the Spartans moving on in the District XI Championship to face Tamaqua Area next Friday at Lehighton.
During the final huddle of the Spartans, Assistant Coach Joe Tomtishen said, "We won this game for Jaden, now we win the championship for Jaden."
