Abington Heights will play its home football opener under the lights at the high school’s turf field for the second straight season.
Last season, the Comets opened the season with the school’s first night home game and first game on its new artificial turf field, knocking off Tunkhannock, 16-0, in a non-league game that wound up as one of just two wins in the 10-game season.
Abington Heights will open this season on the road in a non-league game Aug. 26 at Dallas.
The Comets host Wilkes-Barre Area in a Sept. 2 night game, then play their remaining four home games at Comets Stadium on Grove Street.
Abington Heights is in Division 1 of a realigned Lackawanna Football Conference this year. It goes from a five-team division to seven teams, adding Scranton Prep and Valley View, the top two teams from the old Division 2. They join Delaware Valley, North Pocono, Scranton and Wallenpaupack as the other division rivals in what is now a six-game division schedule instead of four.
The first division game is Sept. 24 at home against Wallenpaupack.
Abington Heights is expected to return its top four receivers and four of its top six tacklers from a young team last season.
Two-way end Nico Bossi, who shared the receiving lead with Mason Fedor and led the team in sacks, and Christian Henzes fit both categories.
Roman Cutrufello is the other top receiver coming back.
Austin Boersma led the team in tackles last season as a sophomore.
Jack Burke also returns among the top tacklers.
In all, the Comets are likely to have back 10 of the 17 defenders who reached double figures in tackles a year ago.
Cutrufello leads the rest of that list, which also includes Connor Casey, Anthony Curra, Garrett Sespico, Gavin Kerrigan and Jake Grimaldi.
