The Centennial and Mount Hebron High football teams are approaching mid-season wondering if they can manage a single victory in 2010.

And that fear is keeping the players on each team united.

The Ellicott City rivals that are located just four miles apart and know each other so well find themselves in the same embarrassing 0-4 position.

For Centennial, an experienced squad that was expecting to compete for a playoff spot, injuries and the inability to stop big plays have caused games to slip away late. For Mount Hebron, young talent has produced flashes of competitiveness but the reality of being outscored, 173-35.

It's been difficult for the players, who get ribbed by peers. And it tests the coaches, who take heat, mostly from parents.

"Everybody is entitled to pay their $3 and tell you what you what they think you should be doing," said Mount Hebron coach Ross Hannon. "The funny thing is, the E-mails that you may get and the phone calls you may get – anonymous letters that end up in your mailbox – often the underlining theme is it's all about playing time.

"You know, 'You didn't get the ball to my kid enough, you didn't run the ball enough. Why didn't my kid start?' I'm OK with it…I that the parents think we should be lined off right there with (unbeaten) River Hill, but last I checked no one in the county has really been with River Hill."

Coach Ken Senisi of Centennial, coming off two games that got away in the second half, is hoping that Friday's 7 p.m. game at Marriotts Ridge (0-4) will begin a turnaround.

"It's one of those games, where they're 0-4 and we're 0-4 and you're never as bad as you think," said Senisi. "I watched them last week against Hammond. And they go hard, extremely hard."

Senisi said unity keeps his Eagles motivated. "We talk about -- it's about us," he said. "They (parents and students) aren't out here, they don't see the work we put in.

"(The players') attitude has been great. They know what to do out here. It's going to happen. I really feel like the last half of the season we're going to put it together. We're playing for our team pride right now."

Eagles senior linebacker Frank Bloom said it's just a matter of not letting up.  "We're coming out in the first half fired up," he said. "Like against Atholton we're up 22-0 at one point (in a 29-22 loss). I guess we just have to work at finishing games.

"They (peers) say stuff, but they're not the ones out here every single day. They don't know what it's like. We just ignore it….Coach is preaching to us every day, it's not about the fans and anything like that. It's about the guys we have here and just working together."

Mount Hebron has an emotional homecoming game at 1 p.m. Saturday against Long Reach (1-4), which is coming off an impressive 31-26 victory against Oakland Mills. Honorary team captains are 6-year-old Matthew Hoffman, a kindergarten student at St. John's Lane Elementary who is fighting leukemia, and Mount Hebron junior Clarissa Schilstra, who has made a second recovery from the disease.

Hundreds of fans will be wearing gold T-shirts that they purchased to benefit the oncology unit at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, where Matthew is still undergoing treatment. Hannon said the original order of 400 shirts sold out quickly, so 400 more were ordered. Gold is the symbolic color for children's cancer awareness.

"I'm excited for Long Reach and homecoming and everything we have going on," said Hannon. "Our students have been phenomenal, painting signs -- we're selling T-shirts…and making signs for the (homecoming parade) floats."

No matter what happens this weekend for the Vikings and Eagles, the probable highlight of the season for both comes at 7 p.m. the following Friday, Oct. 8. It's Centennial at Mount Hebron.

Said Hannon, "We could be 6-0 and they could be 0-6 -- you throw the records out the window because they mean nothing."