Protime’s Pigskin Parlance – 2024 Milestones, Record Breakers & Game Shakers – Edition 10 and Last of the Season
Tagged under: News, pfn, Protime Predictions
Phil Myers | October 31, 2024
https://www.twobirchwinery.com/
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: Who holds the state career rushing record?
Program Wins Milestones
The Southwestern Mustangs galloped to a victory over Spring Grove last week, and in doing so, they notched their 400th program win. Congrats! Ridgway is a win away from #600. The Elkers play Keystone this Friday, and if they win, they will reach a pretty lofty milestone. If not, they will have to wait until next year. North Star and Palisades have playoff games this week too. If one or both win it will be that program’s 200th triumph.
Coaching Milestones
If a couple of teams do well in the playoffs, their coaches will hit either 275 wins or 225 victories. Jeff Weachter of Bishop McDevitt is 5 wins from #275 but in order to hit that mark, the Crusaders need to win 5 more games. If they do, they’ll be in the state finals and Coach Weachter will have his 275th career win. Mark Lyons of Central Valley needs 3 victories to hit 225 career wins. His Warriors have the talent to do just that, so we’ll see what happens.
Team Achievements
Ellwood City is now 9-0. The last time the Wolverines did that World War II was still going on, 80 years ago in 1944. Carlynton made the playoffs for the first time since 2001. Congrats to the Cougars. Albert Gallatin broke the school record for rushing yardage in one game with 594 yards gained running the football and broke the season rushing record with 3,330.
The Clairton Bears had quite a year. They were first in points scored and first in scoring defense. Their offense scored a total of 540 points, while the defense allowed 21 in 10 games (really 14 as a TD was scored by the opposing team’s defense). Central Clarion was #1 in average points scored with 56.7 as the Wildcats played only 9 games. Cambria Heights was second to Clairton in scoring defense with 45 and average points allowed 4.5.
Individual Achievements
Elysabeth Myers (Brockway) became the first female to score a touchdown in school history. She is the sister of all-state receiver Blake Pisarcik who caught 4 touchdowns passes in the same game. QB Kal-El Durham (West Catholic), now has 3,000 yards passing in his career and 1,000 yards rushing this season.
School Record Breakers
Kaiden Maurer, Line Mountain – 27 TDs in one year. Holden Schreier of Bellwood-Antisnow has the most passing yards in a game with 354 against Bishop McCort. Jakobe Harman, Everett, raced around for 406 yards smashing the Warrior single game record of 315. Bryce Graham, South Western, 1,827 single season passing yards. Brody Pentzis the first Bucktail Buck to ever rush for 1000+ yards in two years. He finished with 3000+ yards on his career. Bo Sheptock, Danville, has 47 career rushing TDs and counting. Notre Dame Green Pond’s QB Matt Bodnar is the all-time season pass yardage leader. Gettysburg’s Brady Heiser broke the school career passing record by throwing 6,217 yards to date. Dylan Scheller of South Williamsport is in the record book for receiving. He caught 12 passes for 206 yards and broke two records.
State Offensive Leaders (MaxPreps)
Top Quarterbacks at Conclusion of Regular Season:
- Matt Bodnar, Notre Dame Green Pond – 3,793 yards passing.
- Trey Wingard, DuBois – 2,676 yards passing.
- Ashton Walk, Tyrone – 2,676 yards passing.
- Aiden Patton, Brockway – 2,575 yards passing.
- Jase Ferguson, Central Clarion – 2,486 yards passing
Ferguson has 41 touchdown passes to lead the state through the regular season. Bodnar is second with 36 TD tosses, while Isaac Zietz (General McLane) and Wingard have 33. Stone Saunders (Bishop McDevitt) rounds out the top five with 32 touchdown passes.
Top Wide Receivers at Conclusion of Regular Season:
- Drew Cook, South Allegheny – 1,236 receiving yards.
- Luke Kreger, North Penn Mansfield – 1,188 receiving yards.
- Ty Salazer, St. College – 1,154 yards receiving.
- Hamilton Gates, Bishop Guilfoyle – 1,070 receiving yards.
- Josh Smith, Mechanicsburg – 1,049 yards receiving.
Salazer led the state with 16 touchdown receptions for the regular season. Smith and Blake Pisarcik (Brockway) tied for second with 15. And numerous others including Gates had 14.
Top Running Backs at Conclusion of Regular Season:
- Braxtyn Brown, Columbia Montour Vo-Tech – 2,401 rushing yards.
- Liam Taylor, Haverford – 2,286 rushing yards.
- Brady Collins, Clearfield – 2,266 yards rushing.
- Niko Carestia, Schuylkill Haven – 2,124 rushing yards.
- Aiden Bliss, Port Allegany – 2,011 rushing yards.
Bliss (Port Allegany) leads the state with 37 rushing touchdowns. Collins was second with 33 rushing TDs. Lee Qualk (California) was third with 32, Carestia has 29 which was good for 4th, and Bo Sheptock (Danville) with 27, round out the top five in rushing touchdowns. Bliss led the state with 41 total touchdowns and total points with 258.
State Defensive Leaders
A quick look at defense has Dylan Stephens (United Valley) leading the state in tackles after the regular season with 183. Noah Doi (Camp Hill) was second with 173, and Alex Marfink (Sheffield) third with 168 tackles. Marfink did it in only 7 games. In the interception department, Justin Schell (Greenville) was top man with 9. Gavin Bell (Hollidaysburg), and Alex Moren (Salisbury) tied for second with 8 picks. Tied for the state lead in sacks through the regular season with 16 are Maxim Johnson (Line Mountain), Remington Diehl (Claysburg-Kimmel), and Cole Staker (Eastern York).
Round and Round We Go
The biggest one to mention is Aliquippa, Montour, and West Allegheny. On October 4th the Quips beat West A 19-7. Then, the Friday before last Montour upended Aliquippa 36-35. Then just last week, West Allegheny defeated the unbeaten Montour Spartans 13-7.
Protime wants to mention one more and that is from D1 and involves three Downingtown teams if you can believe it. On October 10th Bishop Shanahan knocked Downingtown West from the ranks of the unbeaten 28-22. The very next week Downingtown East pulverized Shanahan 62-28. Then last week, the Whippets of West eked out a 14-13 victory over the East Cougars.
Games of the Week
There were 14 games decided by a single point around the state last week and numerous other close games and down to the wire contests. Protime went nuts trying to pick out a half dozen or so. In the end he is going to pass this time and say the plethora of games of the week are far too many to mention. Four of the fourteen one-pointers were in District 6 plus they had three more decided by two or three points.
Answer to trivia question: Rushel Shell of Hopewell ran for 9,078 yards during his career. Jeremiah Young of Steelton-Highspire is second with 9,027. Yes indeed, only 51 measly yards separate these two PA football legends.
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