Just north of San Antonio, you’ll find Farm-to-Market Road 3009, which is most prominently known as the road you’d take to visit Natural Bridge Caverns.

Locally, however, FM3009 is known as the dividing line between the two high schools of the Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District. And Friday night, the road will be all but impassable as Schertz Clemens and Cibolo Steele renew their friendly-but-fierce rivalry on their shared Lehnhoff Stadium home turf.

“I understand what this game means to the community,” said Clemens coach Jared Johnston. “These are the district’s two schools, located six miles apart. Both teams want to win. It’s like when you go in the back yard and play anything against your sibling. The last thing you want to do is lose. That weighs heavily on this game.”

The communities are so close, so intertwined, that it’s possible Friday’s rivals attended the same elementary or middle schools before being sent to their respective high school. Friendships form early and last through the rivalry. Take quarterbacks Wyatt Begeal (Steele) and  Max Didomenico (Clemens). They both attended a football camp at Kansas State this summer, so they travelled together, Johnston said.

This week, they’ll lead their teams with intensity and ferocity as they look to grab district bragging rights.

A rivalry of ‘mutual respect’

“Growing up, my school had a rival in a nearby town, but it wasn’t anything like this,” said Steele coach David Saenz. “This is a healthy rivalry with a lot of mutual respect. This is intense and I guarantee both teams will play hard for all 48 minutes.”

The Battle of 3009 always draws a crowd – such a crowd that SCUCISD athletic director Scott Lehnhoff, who played quarterback at Clemens and coached at Steele before moving into the athletic director’s office, confirmed that extra sets of temporary bleachers are being.

“We’re bringing in all kinds of portable bleachers because we’re going to have such a great crowd on both sides,” he said, expecting the attendance to far exceed the listed capacity of 7,500.

Lehnhoff isn’t the only person who’ll be attending the game with ties to both sides, though he’s most likely the only one who can do so without a rooting interest.

“I’ll probably be behind one of the end zones with my hands in my pocket,” Lenhoff said. “It’s tough for me because at the end of the night, one of our teams is going to lose and not be happy about it. But I just try to take it in and enjoy the event and all of the spirit groups and great things that go along with a game like this. I love the way the community comes together for this game.”

Johnston was part of the Clemens coaching staff before changing sides when Steele opened its doors in the early mid-2000s. He served as an assistant at Steele until he took over at Clemens in 2012.

 “I’ve been on both sides of this,” Johnston said, “and I can tell you this is a neat atmosphere. It’s very much like a college gameday atmosphere.”

It’s something he wishes every player gets to experience.

“We have some Division I players on our team who will get to experience that, but we have a ton of players who won’t,” he said. “To be able to play in this atmosphere as a high school athlete, you learn how blessed you really are.”

What does it feel like? Saenz has been involved in nine of the 10 meetings, and he struggles to put the gameday feeling into words.

“It’s just a feeling and an excitement of playing in a game like this, it’s really indescribable,” he said. “There’s just something about it. It’s really difficult to put that into words.”

Lehnhoff had a simple description based on being involved in all of the games.

“This small-town rivalry, it really is what high school football is all about,” he said. “It’s about the great support that each team gets, the great attendance, and it’s about two teams that are going to play football the right way. Afterwards, we’ll all shake hands and wish each other luck and mean it.”

Upping the stakes

If the environment is one thing – with essentially the entire Schertz and Cibolo communities converging on the stadium – the ramifications that go well beyond district bragging rights are another. Both schools play in District 26-6A, and should both schools finish in the top four and earn playoff spots, they’ll be the Division II representatives. That means the winner (assuming both finish with identical district records) earns the top seed – and a coveted home playoff game in the Bi-District playoffs.

“If we’re both fortunate to make the playoffs, then yes, this becomes a game for playoff seeding,” Sanez said. “Our district is really tough, and if we’re not at our best every week, nothing is guaranteed. We try not to look at those things.”

But it’s there, and given that a trip to Austin to most likely face perennial power Westlake awaits the loser, the battle for playoff seeding is a bit more important.

“This is a big district game with a lot on the line,” Johnston said. “Winning will likely get you home field advantage in the playoffs if you can get in. Last year we lost and had to open the playoffs at Westlake. This is a big game for that reason, too.”

Both teams appear on track, at least as they move into the second week of district play, to repeat as playoff qualifiers. Both teams are 3-1, and both come off grueling tests last week: Steele dropped a shootout to Judson 51-48 while Clemens rallied to top Smithson Valley in a defensive battle, 15-7.

“We did a lot of really good against Judson, and some not so good,” Saenz said. “I really liked the way we competed and I like our physicality. We’re just looking for improvement this week in all three phases of the game.”

“I was really proud of our kids last week,” Johnston said. “We handled some adversity ina defensive game. We just couldn’t get anything going offensively until very late when it really counted. We never panicked and kept grinding away.”

Friday’s game will be a grind as well. Johnston looks back at last year’s game, where his Buffaloes struggled to finish drives. Of five trips inside the Knights’ red zone, they scored just once.

“We need to finish our drives and finish the game,” he said. “That’s the key and that’s what we’re preaching.”