Tacoma is known as “The City of Destiny.”

The South Kitsap football team’s own destiny will be determined by how it performs the next few weeks against its Narrows League opponents in Tacoma.

It all starts at 7 p.m. Friday against Foss at Mount Tahoma High School.

The Falcons have a 4-2 record, but haven’t defeated any team of significance.

Tacoma Public Schools dictated during the offseason that they would continue to play each other.

Each team misses two opponents in the 11-team league, which means the top Tacoma school doesn’t play two teams outside its perennially weak city counterparts.

All other Narrows schools then miss two Tacoma public schools.

Mount Tahoma, which misses undefeated Olympia and South, has a 4-1 league record and could end up in third place mostly because it misses good competition.

It’s not fair, but those are the rules the Wolves have to play against now.

And that’s why Friday game takes on more significance.

While South can’t control Mount Tahoma’s finish, it needs a win against the Falcons to pass them in the standings.

The Wolves are tied for fifth place in the Narrows with Central Kitsap, which beat them 14-13 earlier in the season and own the tiebreaker.

Foss and Lincoln, which have a combined 7-5 league record, are two of the three final regular-season games left on the schedule.

Neither team has defeated anyone of significance.

Six of those wins came against Tacoma schools, while the Falcons defeated winless Shelton early in the season.

Against better competition — at home, nonetheless — Lincoln lost 38-7 against Central and Gig Harbor beat Lincoln 41-0.

Simply put, these are games the Wolves should and need to win. That’s because the last home game is Oct. 24 against Olympia.

The Bears don’t feature future Pac-10 prospects, like Bellevue or Skyline, but they’re deep and talented on both sides of the football, particularly on defense, where they allow just 4.7 points per game.

It might be even less if coach Bill Beattie didn’t pull many of his starters at halftime.

The Wolves realistically should finish 5-3 in league play, and can’t afford to be worse.

The Narrows shares six state-playoff berths with the South Puget Sound League, arguably the state’s best in the Class 4A classification.

The lower South finishes in the Narrows, the more difficult its challenge becomes to advance to state for a state consecutive year because it will have to beat better competition.

But that’s a discussion for another day. After all, the road to destiny will be trod in two days.

Chris Chancellor can be reached at (360) 876-4414, or by e-mail at sports@portorchardindependent.com.