SIDNEY — Sidney’s football schedule will look a bit different when the school joins the Miami Valley League — with one particular absence starting in 2020.
The revived MVL will feature a nine-game conference starting in 2020, which will leave Sidney with one nonconference game on the first week of the season. Sidney’s administration opted to keep traditional opponent Bellefontaine on the schedule in Week 1 and will drop St. Marys.
“A byproduct of all the conference games is not playing St. Marys, which is a negative,” Sidney athletic director Mitch Hoying said. “But we’re going to find a way to try and enhance the Bellefontaine-Sidney rivalry as a way to compensate for that.”
The Yellow Jackets have opened the season against St. Marys every year since 1983 (save for a two-year gap in 2007 and ‘08) and also played every year from 1963-1973. The game has long been the lone nonconference game for St. Marys, which has a nine-game Western Buckeye League schedule.
Sidney has played Bellefontaine every year since 1919, save for seven seasons between 1974 and 1982. The schools first met in 1899.
“We have a longstanding tradition of playing Bellefontaine in sports other than football,” Hoying said. “We want to enhance that. We’re going to play on (Fox 45’s) Thursday Night Lights this coming school year. We’ve got to commit with Bellefontaine that we’re going to play them in pretty much everything as often as humanly possible.”
Sidney leads the 111-game series against the Chieftains 59-43-9.
Sidney and St. Marys have played 65 times since they first met in 1900. The Roughriders lead the series 35-27-3.
Sidney beat St. Marys 39-32 in a season-opening thriller last year and followed a week later with a 42-33 win over Bellefontaine.
