Salamanca, Portville raise bar in long rivalry
By J.P. BUTLER, Olean Times Herald
This game, undoubtedly, meant something in 1996.
Twenty-eight years ago, the Salamanca football team, in current coach Chad Bartoszek’s junior year, forged a 7-1 regular season en route to a 9-2 mark highlighted by a sectional championship. The Warriors’ only loss? A 21-20 setback to a 5-4 Portville team that reached the sectional semifinals.
It was an anticipated meeting in 2001.
That season, Salamanca edged the Panthers, 19-18, amid an 11-1 campaign that ended with a trip to the Far West Regional.
And it surely holds a particular significance, for both sides, right now.
Portville and Salamanca have been playing football against one another “for forever,” Bartoszek noted. According to the latter’s record book, the first contest pitting the two came back in 1922, when the Warriors topped the Panthers, 20-6.
Over the decades, that mostly-annual cross-county contest became a rivalry. And now, after a 13-year hiatus (from 2005-17), which included some lean years for both programs, and a jumpstart from both current coaches, the two have rekindled that rivalry in recent seasons. They’ve also provided a punch of nostalgia from the “old days,” when these kinds of classic all-Big 30 matchups were the norm.
SINCE 2019, the year Bartoszek returned to his alma mater, Portville and Salamanca have met six times — the most acquainted they’ve been since playing in 10-straight seasons from 1995-2004 — with the Warriors winning the last four for a 4-2 series edge.
Yes, Salamanca has had the upper hand of late, but those games have all been exciting, competitive clashes. Consider: the Warriors avenged a 54-14 regular-season loss to the Panthers in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season with a 6-0 triumph amid snowy conditions on a holiday Sunday (Mother’s Day) in May in the Class D semifinals (if you recall that truly bizarre set of circumstances). Last year, Salamanca nipped Portville/Cuba-Rushford, 8-7, in the regular season, then rallied to beat the Panthers, 35-24, in the Class C semis. And just five days ago, they played another close one, with Salamanca fending off coach Josh Brooks’ team in Week 2, 24-19.
But it isn’t just that they’ve staged great games. It’s that, along the way, they’ve established themselves as two of the Big 30’s best programs.
SINCE 2020, the Warriors have gone 28-11 with two sectional championship appearances, one title (last fall, Salamanca’s first since 2001), two league championships and a trip to last year’s New York State Final Four. Portville, meanwhile, has gone 24-13 with four-straight trips to the sectional semifinals and an unbeaten league mark in 2020. And that, the Warriors’ recent success notwithstanding, is what has allowed this to truly become a rivalry once again.
To Bartoszek, this just happens to be the latest chapter.
“I mean, as far as I can remember, that was a big game, going back to 1996,” he said. “They’ve had good programs, and I think Salamanca-Portville has always been, geographically, a big game. The other part of that is it just comes from the success of the programs. Rivalries really heat up as the success increases. Over the years, (these) programs have had their ups and downs, but right now, both programs are rolling a little bit and that creates exciting football.
“We’re competitive coaches and (both) coaching staffs want to win this game badly. The expectation is that it’s going to be similar the next time we play. I mean, we played a tight one again the other night. It’s just the way it is.”
BROOKS ECHOED that sentiment, and both coaches agreed that these are the kinds of games that truly prepare their teams for the postseason. The seventh-year Portville/C-R coach’s hope is that his Panthers can soon win a few more of these matchups … or, for now, use Friday’s result as a stepping stone for the rest of the season.
“They have certainly been fantastic high school football games,” Brooks said. “We have a lot of respect for Coach Bartoszek and what he’s done in Salamanca to turn that program around. It always seems to come down to one or two plays or calls that can go either way. These types of games make your team better in the long run. As frustrating as it is to come out of the losing side of things, we now have a chip on our shoulder that we will use to motivate us moving forward.”
A year ago, both teams finished in the top four in Section 6 Class C.
This fall, they’re again among the favorites for the sectional championship, with WNY Athletics’ Frank Wolf ranking them Nos. 1 (Salamanca) and 2 in Class C ahead of last week’s head-to-head matchup.
Beyond the rivalry, it’s become a heavyweight bout. And it’s one that figures only to intensify now that the two are league foes and playoff regulars once more.
“It’s rare that I use the term (rivalry) with our guys,” Bartoszek said, “but with the way things went down last year, we had two huge games with them in a span of three weeks. We use that as motivation.
“I just think it’s good football communities, successful programs that want to win and they know they’ve got to get through each other to get to the top. So, yes, it does create extra motivation.”
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