Protime’s Pigskin Parlance: Milestones, record breakers & game shakers- program wins edition
Tagged under: Coaches Corner, News, pfn
Phil Myers | October 18, 2023
Protime’s weekly column that 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. My 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: What was the final score of the historical game played at Mansell Stadium in DuBois between the Meadville Bulldogs and the Beavers on September 11, 2015? Answer will be at the end of this article.
Five fabulous football programs reached a milestone of at least 500 wins this past weekend.
Beaver Falls won their 700th game. Congrats to the Tigers!! Canton, Littlestown, Meadville, and Milton won their 500th game of all-time. Congrats to those schools as well.
Earlier this year Catasauqua, LaSalle College, Manheim Central, and Sharpsville won their 600th career game, while Brockway, Jersey Shore, Pottstown, Punxsutawney, Thomas Jefferson, and Westmont won their 500th. There are a dozen or more schools creeping up on 500 or 600 or 700 wins. Mt. Carmel leads all of Pennsylvania with 896 victories. The Valdosta Wildcats (Georgia) are the winningest high school football team in America with 946 wins. Mt. Carmel is #6.
And while on the topic of the Red Tornadoes, they ‘upset’ Southern Columbia last week 42-30. Was it an upset? And should Mt. Carmel with 2 losses be ranked ahead of Southern who was #1 in AA? That is a question that pundits all over PA are wrestling with. As the old adage goes, ‘only time will tell.’
Coaching Milestones
Speaking of Southern Columbia, Jim Roth is approaching win number 500, however, that loss to MCA means that even if they win out he’ll have to wait until next year to hit that number. He currently stands at 491-68-2.
Bill Cherpak’s high school coaching record stands at 307-55 after Thomas Jefferson’s win this past Friday. Why is that important? Well, that win moves ‘Cherp’ into the #3 slot all-time in coaching wins in the WPIAL (District 7) behind Jim Render and Joe Hamilton. Congrats Coach Cherpak!!
Team Achievements
Palmerton’s Blue Bombers are currently undefeated at 8-0. ‘So what,’ you say, ‘so are a lot of other teams.’ Yeah, but Palmerton hasn’t been 8-0 since 1951 way before most of us were born.
Columbia only lost 28-19 to Northen Lebanon. But if it wasn’t for the Vikings of No. Lebanon forcing 7 turnovers, the outcome probably would have been completely different.
Richland is now ranked #2 in the state in AA. They’ve done it with two freshmen quarterbacks and a freshman wide receiver. How many teams ranked this high had their freshman quarterback get hurt and had another freshman QB step right in not missing a beat? That says a lot about the program, coach Brandon Bailey and his staff. Coach Bailey is the son of Forest Hills’ legendary coach Don Bailey who is currently 5th on the all-time list of winningest coaches.
Players Breaking Records
A couple of Masons etched their name in their school’s receiving records this past week. Mason Clouse of Redbank Valley has caught 15 touchdown passes this year to set a new single season receiving TD record that is undoubtedly going to increase. Mason Musitano of Fleetwood is now the Tigers’ career leader in receptions. That mark will also be added to without question.
No one in the history of Pennsylvania football has passed for more yardage or thrown more touchdown passes than Alex Erby of Steelton-Highspire. Mr. Erby set the career passing yardage record two weeks ago. Last week he tossed 7 TD passes to break Jeff Hoenstine’s (Central-Martinsburg) mark of 146. Erby now has 147 touchdown passes and 11,722 passing yards for his career which broke Brett Brumbaugh’s (South Fayette) old record.
Erby has thrown for 2,579 yards this year to lead all PA quarterbacks. Freshman Javin Peel of Western Beaver is second with 2,138 yards. Peel is believed to be the first ever freshman QB in WPIAL history to throw for more than 2,000 yards in a single season. His 25 touchdown passes may also be a WPIAL record for a freshman. Other QBs with over 2,000 yards so far are Stone Saunders (Bishop McDevitt), Matt Zollers (Spring Ford), Braylon Wagner (Redbank Valley), Carson Nagle (Bald Eagle Area), and Eli Muthler (Central-Martinsburg).
Saunders leads PA with 35 touchdown tosses. Erby, Wagner, Hayden Johnson (Manheim Township), and Jase Ferguson (Central Clarion) all have 33.
Next week we’ll look at some of the top running backs in PA. Speaking of running backs, Kendell Cottrell of Bristol has raced up and down the football field the past three weeks for 825 yards, scoring 16 touchdowns in the process. His Bristol Warriors defeated Morrisville last week for the 23rd straight time. Morrisville has not beaten Bristol since 1998.
Scoring Stats
The leading scoring offenses through eight weeks of football are Central Clarion, Mercyhurst Prep, and Redbank Valley. Central Clarion averages 61.8 points a contest. Mercyhurst averages 61.1 and Redbank averages 54.
The top defenses as far as giving up the fewest points per game are Peters Township, Northampton, Mercyhurst, and Downingtown East. They are the only teams that have given up fewer than 40 points total. Peters only allows an average of 3.3 points a game. Northampton gives up 4.0 per game, Mercyhurst 4.1 and Downingtown East 4.5. D’town East has pitched 5 shutouts in the 7 games they’ve played. (They had a bye week).
For a full list of scoring stats, visit https://pafootballnews.com/team-scoring-stats/
The “down side”.
The once proud and powerful Greater Johnstown Trojans have happened upon some really hard times. They’ve now lost 38 straight games and 57 of their last 58. Back in the day, Johnstown had many great teams and won 3 WPIAL titles when they were part of the Pittsburgh League. The Trojans also won the mythical state championship in 1941. At that time, they were the second highest rated team ever. Only the 1919 Harrisburg Tech team had a higher rating.
Answer to the trivia question: Meadville 107 DuBois 90.
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