By DOUG DONNELLY

Whiteford will play its first ever Toledo Area Athletic Conference game Friday night when the Bobcats host West Unity (OH) Hilltop in a league football game.

It will be the fourth conference Whiteford has competed in for football in the nearly 70 years of the program.

The Bobcats played in the River Raisin Conference from 1960 to 1972, the Michigan-Ohio Border Conference in 1973 and 1974 and moved to the Tri-County Conference in 1975. They had been a member of the TCC for 50 years until last year, which was the final year for the league in 11-player football.

This marks a new era for the Bobcats, who are competing the TAAC along with Summerfield, Erie Mason, Hilltop, Ottawa Hills, Edon, Montpelier, Pioneer North Central.

Whiteford has never played Hilltop or Montpelier in football.

The Bobcats and Summerfield were rivals in the RRC and TCC. Erie Mason was briefly a member of the RRC and the MOBC and, most recently, the TCC. Ottawa Hills was also a member of the TCC in the early 1970s.

Whiteford won three River Raisin Conference championships and seven TCC titles, six of them coming in the last 10 years.

Hilltop comes into the game 0-3 while the Bobcats are 1-1, coming off a non-league loss to Harbor Beach.