Like his players and their fans, Bloomsburg coach Larry Sones was disappointed with the ending to the Panthers' season last week. Just not for the reason you might think.

Sure, he would have liked to have moved on to the PIAA Class AA quarterfinals this week. But his biggest concern was not what showed on the scoreboard at Mount Carmel's Silver Bowl (28-0 for the Red Tornadoes).

Sones' outstanding four-year quarterback, Blake Rankin, sustained a season-ending broken ankle on the game's opening drive.

The question on most people's minds was would Rankin, who last year made a verbal commitment to Rutgers, lose his shot at a scholarship?

"It was a concern of mine," Sones said this week.

No longer.

"They were great. Rutgers already talked to him and everything is a go there. It was real positive on both ends," Sones said.

Sones said the 6-foot-4, 205-pound Rankin is wearing a soft-shoe cast and has to wait for the swelling to subside to have an MRI. "He is probably going to need surgery. The projection (of recovery time) was three to four months," he said.

Rankin will miss his senior basketball season, but hopes to be ready for track and field. He throws the javelin and runs on the 400-meter relay.

Sones said there may be a silver lining to what happened at the Silver Bowl. "He has been going full-bore for four years. He didn't want the rest, but he's going to get a little rest here," the coach said.

"But he is handling it well, although he is really disappointed that he is going to miss the basketball season," Sones added.

It was the second straight year that the Panthers endured a heartbreaking playoff loss. Last year, they went for a 2-point conversion rather than a possible game-tying PAT and lost 21-20 in the district quarterfinals to eventual PIAA semifinalist Lewisburg.

Despite a second season with lingering thoughts of "what if?" Sones said he felt strangely at ease last Saturday morning.

"I didn't feel down, and I thought there was something wrong with that," Sones said. "But those kids fought and played as hard as they could, and that's all I can ask."

And his star player will get the opportunity to make him proud at the next level.

"He's excited and I think it's a nice fit,'' Sones said.

BOUNCING BACK: Like Sones' Panthers, who stayed strong even though many of them and their families were affected by the devastating Tropical Storm Lee flooding in September, the players who will face off tonight in Mount Carmel in the PIAA Class AAA quarterfinals have shown their mettle when it looked like their respective seasons had been lost.

Allentown Central Catholic went from being the state champions last season, to going 2-5 and disappearing from the state rankings in 2011. Shamokin found itself 2-6 with chances of a District 4 playoff berth sinking faster than Lindsey Lohan's job prospects.

If they could help it, ACC coach Harold Fairclough and Shamokin's Dan Foor were not about to let that happen.

Fairclough said injuries early on had the Vikings struggling to find the right pieces for the offensive line, and they knew if they were to become competitive again, that problem would have to be solved. And it was.

He believes ACC plays in one of the toughest leagues in the state (Lehigh Valley Conference) and once the Vikings survived the tough early schedule and began to win and get more confident, they also started to understand they needed to improve or their season could be over.

"Things worked out. We kept believing, kept working hard and good things happened for us and we have this opportunity. We are not taking anything for granted," Fairclough said, noting that the Vikings needed some help to make the playoffs and they got it.

Then they survived a 61-54 win last week over Valley View, something that Fairclough could only compare with a 1998 game at Susquehanna University when his Crusaders (he was a starting linebacker) beat Juniata 62-61 in double overtime on a blocked PAT.

Fairclough said his players are doing a nice job of putting the Valley View game behind them and concentrating on moving on to the next round.

As for Shamokin, Foor said, "These are 16- to 18-year-old kids and they have been resilient all year, in the bad times and here in the good times. They didn't panic when we were 2-6 and they didn't panic on that last drive against Milton (a late comeback win) and the last three drives against Clearfield (when they erased a two-score deficit and won in OT).

"They are a great bunch of kids and nothing has really rattled them all year," Foor added.

So here they are, 8-5 ACC versus 6-7 Shamokin -- two wins away from a trip to Hershey.

For the winner tonight, you might want to cue up The Grateful Dead, because what a long strange trip it's been.

n Assistant sports editor Harold Raker covers high school football for The Daily Item. Email comments to hraker@dailyitem.com.