TIOGA BULLDOGS
The 2025 edition of the Battle of the Bridge was scheduled to take place at 7 p.m. Thursday when the Tioga Bulldogs traveled to Collinsville to meet the Pirates at W.L. Stephenson Sports Complex.
The two rivals have met multiple times in recent years, with Collinsville winning the last three games in a row.
“There's a reason they're ranked where they are, and there's a reason they've been in the fourth round of the playoffs these past couple of years,” said Zach Birdwell, Tioga athletic director and head football coach. “They put a quality product on the field. We have a really good football team in front of us, but that's what we want our nondistrict to be. We want the measuring stick early in the season so we can know where we are and to see playoff-level competition early on so that when we get to the playoffs, we're prepared.”
The No. 7 ranked Pirates come into the matchup returning most of their starters from last season on both sides of the ball, led by junior signal caller Jaxon Jenkins, who finished last season with 3,500 passing yards and 38 TDs.
“Collinsville has had exceptional quarterbacks with the last name Jenkins, and JJ is really good,” Birdwell said. “He’s grown from last year, and you can tell he's taking the next step, but it goes back to what I said earlier: for us to get to where we want to be, we're going to have to see good quarterbacks, so to get him this early in the season is awesome for us because their offense is going to test us through the air, and they're going to test us in the run game …, so it's going to be a really good learning experience defensively.”
Jenkins will also have his top weapon at wide receiver, Chad Davidson who had 45 catches for 1,117 yards and 15 TDs as a sophomore.
Birdwell said playing clean, mistake-free football will be crucial for the Bulldogs in the opener and as the season continues.
“The first thing we have to do is eliminate the self-inflicted mistakes,” he said. “… You can't have those kinds of things and beat an opponent like Collinsville, so we're eliminating as many of those as we can, and then we're looking to take the next step week by week.”
Birdwell emphasized that the Bulldogs are using every opportunity they can to continue to grow.
“The things that we needed to get cleaned up from the pilot Point scrimmage, we want to see cleaned up,” he said. “As weird as it sounds, we want to see new mistakes, and that is what nondistrict is for. We don't want to see any of the same mistakes that we saw last week. We want to see new ones because eventually the number of those mistakes is going to get lower and lower to a point where there are only a couple in a game.”
Despite the competitiveness between the neighboring programs, Birdwell said the Bulldogs are focused on reaching their goal of playing football when it matters the most.
“This whole fall camp and these next four weeks leading up to the district, we're going to just continue to set our habits,” he said. “That has been our top priority all throughout fall camp. These goals that we've set aren't going to happen if we don't do the things we're supposed to. If you don’t show up, you hope for things. …We're on the path right now through fall camp and heading into nondistrict, where we're trying to eliminate hope. We're trying to make sure all the work's been put in and our habits are correct, so we roll into games confident and when the opportunity presents itself, we're not hoping we take it; we just go take it.”
Tioga and Collinsville were scheduled to play at 7 p.m. Thursday at W.L. Stephenson Sports Complex. The results were not available by press time.
