By Harold Raker
Some high schools have a great football team or two and then disappear, never to be heard from again.
Others become what are know as "programs." Southern Columbia, despite falling short of the state title game the last two years, is a program.
Lewisburg had a string of seasons when 3-7 was considered by some as successful. Then in 2008, the Green Dragons broke through with a record-breaking season, leading to an appearance in the District 4 Class AA semifinals.
So had Lewisburg become a "program," or were the Dragons just another flash in the proverbial pan?
There were many doubters. Cody Raup was not one of them.
The Green Dragons' 6-foot-3, 223-pound senior tight end/linebacker/punter had a good feeling about this group of football players when they were competing in the midget program several years ago.
"I definitely thought (the 2009 success) was possible," Raup said this week as his team prepared to face Loyalsock in the District 4 Class AA championship game Saturday afternoon at Bucknell University.
"We had the athletes. Ever since midgets, this group of kids we had coming up through were a bunch of good athletes," he said. "We knew Lewisburg wasn't doing well, but coming up through we thought that when we got there, we could have some success."
Raup and his teammates were right on the money, but it didn't come automatically.
"We were focused on lifting, getting faster and bigger, and it finally turned around for us," Raup said. "Last year we had a good team, but I actually thought we could do better this year. We had a lot of kids filling in for the starters last year that could easily fill the spots if not do better."
Raup said the players worked even harder during the past offseason.
"We had a lot more participation this year and it really looked good this summer for how far we could go this year. We stuck together as a team and it's all coming together now," he said.
The team got off to a 3-0 start, but then a 33-7 loss to Hughesville gave the doubters more to talk about. But since that loss, the Green Dragons have won eight in a row, including back-to-back wins against playoff-bound Mount Carmel and Bloomsburg in the same week.
"We couldn't let it get us down," Raup said. "We made a lot of mental and physical mistakes. Hughesville is a very good team, but it would have been a good matchup if we came into it prepared to play."
He said the players discussed the loss and decided not to worry about it, but to look to the future. "We still had a chance to make the playoffs, and I think when we finally looked past it and realized what we could do, we ended up where we are now," he said.
Raup said wins such as the one over Mount Carmel (its first ever) was a confidence booster. "A couple of years ago, we would go out to face harder teams and have a letdown and figure we couldn't play with those guys because they were bigger, stronger and faster," he said. "As a team, we realized that no matter who the team is we have the talent to compete with them and we are hoping we can go further."
Big plays by Raup and a teammate, cornerback Ben Kerlin, in the fourth quarter of last week's game helped Raup and the Green Dragons get the chance to go further.
Lewisburg coach Todd Tilford said Kerlin saved a touchdown when he hustled and ran speedy Towanda running back Kodi Thompson down from behind at the 10. "It looked like he was gone," Tilford said. "Ben was tied up with some blockers, but he put his head down and broke through and barely caught him."
Then, on the Green Dragons' successful goal-line stand (they stopped the Knights on four plays), Raup made another TD-saving stop.
"Cody made an amazing play on the goal line from the back side. I don't know how he got through and we ended up holding them at the 1. Then we got the ball out of there and got field position," Tilford said.
Raup will play his final high school game at Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium on Saturday, but he said that hasn't affected him yet. Possibly because he may return to the stadium as a visiting player in a couple of years. Raup, son of Tim and Jean Raup, received a verbal offer from Lehigh University of the Patriot League earlier this week and will take an official visit to the Bethlehem campus next week. Raup said he plans to play linebacker in college.
Meanwhile, there is a championship to win.
"I think it will be a close game. I'm not going to say either team is going to pull away with it. We both have athletes and will be playing our hearts out trying to win the district championship," he said.
