Editor's note: Each week during the regular season, Stephen Miller will examine four Eastern Pennsylvania Conference football items in this space. Here is his look back at Week 5 and ahead to Week 6.

1. Freedom is the team of the half-year. It's no surprise to see Whitehall, Easton and Parkland near the top of the EPC South Division standings. Pat yourself on the back, however, if you had Freedom reaching the season's midpoint with the division lead.

The Patriots (5-0 overall, 4-0 South) enter Week 6 a half-game ahead of Whitehall and Easton in the division race. Freedom plays its last EPC crossover game of the season Friday against Dieruff, so it will head into the final month of the regular season tied with the Whitehall-Easton winner for the division lead.

Is Freedom the South's best team? It's hard to give the Patriots that nod given the track record and early-season play of Whitehall, Easton and Parkland.

Freedom has been the top story of the first half, though, because of its turnaround. The Patriots were a 2-8 team last season that struggled to score and gave the ball away too often.

The current Patriots have an efficient quarterback (Joe Young), a running game that has churned through the first five weeks, a solid defense and special-teams units that have produced big plays most weeks.

"I think we've been business-like in the way we've prepared," Freedom coach Jason Roeder said. "Coming off the year we had, I think it would have been easy to get off-focus after a couple of wins. I think we've handled the early success pretty well in terms of understanding what's ahead and that we have to get better every day."

What's ahead after Dieruff is a closing stretch against Whitehall, Parkland, Easton and Liberty. Those four games will determine where Freedom sits in the South pecking order.

That those games matter to the division race speaks to how well Freedom played during the season's first half.

2. Parkland finds a silver lining. When Whitehall jumped out to a 24-0 lead Friday, it forced Parkland to turn to its passing game. The Trojans never got closer than 14 points the rest of the night, but they showed the ability to move the ball through the air at times.

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Freedom the story of the half-year in EPC South football