Protime’s Pigskin Parlance – Milestones, Record Breakers & Game Shakers – Team Trifectas
Tagged under: News, Protime Predictions
Phil Myers | November 8, 2023
Protime’s weekly column will attempt to get readers up to date on current football facts, stats, and miscellaneous tidbits of information from across the entire state of Pennsylvania. His crack staff of one will peruse some, but not all newspapers and other sources for hopefully what will be up to date scoop on the previous week’s games, records, and hitherto unknown factoids of the sort.
Trivia question of the week: Protime’s pal, Willie, wants to know who are the only two coaches in Philadelphia Catholic League history to lead two different schools to Catholic League championships?
Program Wins Milestones
Nazareth won their 600th game when they beat Wilkes-Barre last Friday. Congrats to the Blue Eagles. Mt. Carmel now has 899 wins and Phoenixville now has 599. Both teams have tall tasks to get to the next century mark this year though. Mt. Carmel has Southern Columbia and Phoenixville plays Chester this week. St. Joes Prep has 698 career victories, but the Hawks have an excellent chance at hitting 700 this year. After all, they are the #1 team in PA and #9 in the country.
Coaching Milestones
Marian Catholic head coach Stan Dakosty won his 326th game last week which ties him for 11th place all-time in Pennsylvania with Central Bucks West legend, Mike Pettine. Mars head man, Eric Kasperowicz, notched his 100th career win last Friday. He did it in ten years, which may be the fastest anyone in District 7 (WPIAL) ever reached the century mark.
Stan Dakosty, Marian Catholic
Joe Rossi of South Fayette has resigned. He won two state titles with the Lions. “Time for me to sit in the stands and be a football parent, a travel soccer dad, and learn the game of lacrosse,” Rossi wrote on Twitter, “Most importantly, be a husband to the lady who let me live my dream for 26 years!” Rossi also said this isn’t retirement from coaching completely. He predicted he’d be pacing a football sideline again someday. Coach Rossi’s career record is 185-67.
Jeff Lang, who has been on the coaching staff with Governor Mifflin for 33 years, the last 8 as head coach, has also decided to step away for the time being.
Team Achievements
Ephrata and Deer Lakes won their first playoff game ever in the opening week of championship play. Ephrata beat Lower Dauphin and Deer Lakes defeated Southmoreland, who apparently has never won a playoff game either. Trinity out of District 7 won their first playoff game since 2007. Moon went 1-9 in 2022. Last week in the first round of playoff they defeated Gateway and their highly touted quarterback Brad Birch 35-31. Moon went to the Wing-T offense this year and it has paid dividends.
Peters Township, the #2 team in 5A, recorded their 5th shutout of the year. Downingtown East has that beat as they pitched their 7th goose egg of 2023. East is the #5 team in 6A.
Individual Achievements
A few worth mentioning are Braylon Thomas of Union Area, Armand Hill of West Mifflin, Josh Ludlow of Notre Dame Green Pond, and Alex Erby of Steelton. Thomas, one of the premier dual-threat QBs in District 7 (WPIAL), accounted for 7 TDs against Burgettstown when he threw for 3 and rushed for 4 more. Hill, who is a freshman, rushed for 200 yards or more 4 games in a row now. He wasn’t even the starter at the beginning of the year. Ludlow scored 6 touchdowns in NDGP’s opening playoff win. Five by rushing the rock and the 6th on a punt return. Erby added to his state career TD pass record by throwing for 6 against Halifax. One added note, John Meyer of Penns Valley ran a kickoff back 99 yards for a TD.
Braylon Thomas, Union Area.
Record Breakers
Brockway’s Blake Pisarcik became the first player in Rover history to accomplish the touchdown triple crown when he rushed for a touchdown, caught a TD pass, and threw for a score all in one game in leading Brockway to a 7-point win over upset-minded Union/AC Valley. Matt Zollers, the Spring-Ford quarterback extraordinaire, now has 66 career TD tosses which is a school record. Alex Achenbach out of Williams Valley is now the W.V. Viking record-holder in career touchdowns and rushing yardage. Braxton Brown of CMVT became his school’s single season TD champ as he now has 26 for one year. Fleetwood’s quarterback and wide receiver set school records in the same game. Jack Riffle threw for 419 yards and Mason Musitano caught 15 passes for 222 yards.
Team Trifectas
This is why they play the games. Ephrata’s only loss is to Garden Spot by a score of 42-22. Ephrata in turn beat Twin Valley 52-33 to give the Raiders their only loss of the season. It would appear then that Garden Spot should clobber Twin Valley, but no…Twin Valley gave the Spartans their only blemish on the year 35-34. Go figure. North Allegheny massacred Pine-Richland 45-10. Then Pittsburgh Central Catholic annihilated NA 50-22. So, when PCC played Pine-Richland it wasn’t going to be pretty, right? Think again, the Rams beat PCC 26-19. Penn Hills knocked off Pine-Richland 26-20, then was beaten by Central Catholic 45-12. And as we saw Pine-Richland scooted by PCC 26-19. Two more trifectas. Clearfield lost to Forest Hills, Forest Hills lost to Chestnut Ridge, and Clearfield beat the Ridge. Moon beat Bethel Park and lost to Upper St. Clair. U.S.C. lost to Bethel Park. There are many other instances, but you get the picture. Next year Protime will try to keep abreast each time this happens.
Games of the Week
There were plenty of great ones for the opening week of playoffs. Trailing 20-7 with 4 minutes to go Coudersport rallied to defeat Cameron County by scoring with 2 minutes to go, then after recovering an onside kick and scored again to win 21-20. Cameron County miraculously drove to the Coudy 12, but an interception ended the contest. Spring-Ford won 42-35 when they notched the game-winner with 36 seconds left against North Penn. Hershey upset Exeter by overcoming 21-0 and 27-7 deficits in the 2nd half. It was the Trojans first playoff win since 2010. Coatesville went for two and the win at the end of their game with C.B. South but didn’t make it and the Titans won 21-20. When Karns City went up 41-35 over Brookville with 1:30 left it appeared to spell doom for the Blue Raiders. Instead, Brookville scored with 24 seconds left and booted the PAT to win 42-41. Moon tallied late and held on to beat Gateway 35-31. Penn Cambria scored a pair of 4th quarter touchdowns, the last with 32 seconds left, to beat Tyrone 32-28. Bishop Shanahan rolled the dice when they scored with 47 seconds remaining in their game with Pottsgrove. They went for two points and the win. They got it and moved on with the 29-28 miracle win. Most high school teams do not come back from 4 score deficits, but Fleetwood did in their 4A Eastern Conference Championship game with Shamokin. Trailing by 27 points in the second half no less, they came back and won in overtime 42-41.
Answer to the trivia question: George Stratts and Danny Algeo. Stratts, who recently passed away, won with Cardinal Dougherty in 1982 and Cardinal O’Hara in 2000. Algeo’s titles came with Roman Catholic in 1999 and Cardinal O’Hara in 2004.
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