BRADENTON — Twenty years ago, traveling out of state meant playing a team located just across the border.
Putting the whole team on a plane and heading 1,000 miles north wasn’t an option.
Now, however, it’s becoming a trend, and the Hurricanes are buying in. For the first time in its history, Manatee will play a game out of state when the Canes head to Turtle Creek, Pa., to take part in the four-game Rally at Wolvarena.
They play host to Woodland Hills at 8 p.m. Saturday in the final game. Manatee fans can listen to the game at 1490 am.
“When I retired in 2000, the only people that went out of state were if you were on the border. And you went to Valdosta or you went to Alabama or you went to a school that was right beside you,” said Joe Kinnan, Manatee’s head football coach. “The whole landscape of high school football changed.”
Cocoa also will make the trip from Florida. Aside from Woodland Hills, the event includes three other teams from Pennsylvania (McKeesport Area, Pittsburgh Central Catholic and Thomas Jefferson) and two from Ohio (Steubenville and Akron Buchtel).
“There are teams with some solid players that are going to be there,” Kinnan said.
That includes Woodland Hills. The Wolverines are 88-22 at Turtle Creek Stadium — known as the Wolvarena, which seats 12,000 — and won their fifth Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League title last season. All of those championships have come under George Novak, the only coach in the program’s history. He has led the Wolverines to three state title games and 21 postseason appearances since the school began playing football in 1987.
Novak has won 243 games in his career and 187 at Woodland Hills.
The Wolverines went 12-2 last season and lost to State College in the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association’s Class 4A state semifinal.
“There’s a lot of talent out there,” Kinnan said.
Woodland Hills’ tailback Lafayette Pitts has committed to Pittsburgh, and linebacker Ejuan Price has received offers from 12 schools, including Ohio State and West Virginia.
The Hurricanes are looking to further the momentum from Friday’s 48-10 win over Tampa Plant in a Kickoff Classic broadcast live on ESPN.
Though it was a preseason game, the win has earned the Canes even more national respect — they rose from No. 19 to No. 3 in the Powerade Fab 50 ESPN RISE Rankings and from No. 15 to No. 11 in MaxPreps’ top 25 poll.
The Rally gets underway at 11 a.m. when Steubenville faces McKeesport Area.
