3K was a special run for this Kutztown trio
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During offseason workouts Ian Bahr often joked with his Kutztown backfield mates, Mason Sherry and Ryan Walters, about each of them rushing for 1,000 yards.
He called his dream scenario the “3K Backfield.” It was something fun to talk about during teams lifts. No one really gave it much thought once the pads started popping in August.
Then, as the season drew to a close, the Cougars’ backfield trio realized they were on the cusp of something special.
Sherry reached 1,000 yards in Week 8 against Lancaster Catholic. Bahr nearly eclipsed that mark the following week against Columbia; he ended that game with 993 yards. Walters needed a big final game to join them: 155 yards against Pequea Valley in last week’s season finale.
“We can really do this is we put our mind to it,” Sherry thought, “so we did.”
With no chance of seeing the season extended by a game with a playoff trip the onus was on Walters, a 5-11, 165-pound sophomore, to come up big. He admitted to being more nervous than usual as he approached the season finale.
“But I trusted my line, trusted Coach (Chester) with it,” he said.
Late in the third quarter he broke free for a 28-yard touchdown run, his fourth of the game.
“I thought I hit it,” he said of the milestone. “I went to Bahr and said, ‘That has to be it.’ Then Coach told us that we all hit a thousand. We celebrated a little bit, then it was just time to win the game.”
Records are nice but wins are even better, especially at Kutztown where they don’t come around often. Even with their unique ability to run the football – the Cougars led the Lancaster-Lebanon League in rushing – they didn’t win many games. They went into their finale with a 1-8 record.
Walters’ final TD put Kutztown on top 36-28 and that’s where the scoring ended. Sherry, a linebacker, recorded back-to-back sacks on Pequea’s final drive to seal the win and give the Cougars plenty of reasons to celebrate.
Kutztown became the first Berks County team and the first from the Lancaster-Lebanon League to see three players top 1,000 rushing yards in the same season.
| Att. | Yards | Avg. | TDs | |
| Mason Sherry | 168 | 1,351 | 8.0 | 10 |
| Ryan Walters | 137 | 1,031 | 7.5 | 17 |
| Iah Bahr | 153 | 1,008 | 6.6 | 10 |
But it gets better.
It turns out the Cougars are the first team in Pennsylvania to produce three 1,000-yard rushers in the same season in 17 years. Philadelphia West Catholic did it in 2008 but that team had 16 games to get it done; it went all the way to the PIAA championship game. Plus, one of the trio was the quarterback, Curtis Drake.
You would have to go back to 2005 to find the last Pennsylvania team with three running backs hitting 1,000. The Montoursville trio of Luke Ellison, Luke Trick, and Garrett Cillo accomplished the feat. That team made a deep playoff run, too; it played 14 games.
At the college level only one FBS team has produced three 1,000-yard rushers: the University of Nevada in 2009. One of them was the quarterback, Colin Kaepernick.
No NFL team – even with 16- and 18-game seasons — has come close to producing three 1,000-yard rushers; only a handful have had two in the same season.
So, how did the Cougars accomplish this?
It starts with the design of the offense, a Power-T formation, and its three athletically gifted backs.
Bahr, a 5-7, 165-pound senior plays fullback. He’s proven to be elusive and explosive. Sherry, a 5-8, 195-pound senior is one of the halfbacks. Pound for pound he may be the strongest player on the team. Nearly half of his yards come after contact. Walters is the other halfback. He’s one of the fastest and most athletic players in Section 5; he scored in all three phases of the game.
“They all possess different physical attributes that cause me to call plays according to their natural skills,” said Kutztown coach Larry Chester.
The offense is built on deception. There are a lot of play fakes on the handoff, designed to throw the defense off. Any of the three backs can get the ball going in any direction; sometimes there are double-handoffs.
“The deception opens it up,” Bahr said. “If (the defense) is reading me, those other two are going to go crazy. If they’re reading the halfbacks then I should have a good game.”
Chester refers to it as a shell game: You know, the one where a white marble is covered by a shell, and three shells are moved quickly and deceptively so that the viewer loses track of the ball.
“You think you know where that ball is . . . but it’s somewhere else,” he said. “That’s the way we taught the offense.”
The Cougars rarely throw the ball. They attempted 45 passes all season. Ninety-two percent of the time they run it.
They employee double tight ends and pride themselves in their physicality. Many of the small schools they compete against in Section 5 have difficulty standing up to that kind of game-long pounding.
“Deception, speed and violence,” said Chester, “that’s our philosophy.”
It helped the Cougars average 358 rushing yards per game; they were one of only four teams in the 37-team league to average better than 300 per game. Twice this season the Cougars topped 500 yards in a game.
In order to rush for 1,000 yards in 10 games a player needs to be able to stay on the field. That’s not easy for a team with a small roster such as Kutztown’s, where top players are required to play on offense, defense and special teams.
It wasn’t easy for this trio.
Sherry piled up nearly 600 yards in the first three games and Chester thought he was headed for 2,000 yards. Midseason shoulder and back injuries slowed him down.
Walters’ season was threatened last December when he went up for a dunk during basketball warmups and snapped his tibia. He required surgery and three screws to repair the damage. He wasn’t running full speed until July.
Walters was fine once the season began. He rushed for 121 yards in the opener against Fleetwood, the first of five times he topped 100 yards. He led the team with 17 touchdowns and averaged 7.5 yards per carry.
Cougars game-by-game rushing
| Mason Sherry | Ryan Walters | Ian Bahr | Team total | ||
| Fleetwood | 178 | 121 | 75 | 379 | |
| York Tech | 228 | 54 | 194 | 555 | |
| Octorara | 189 | 9 | 79 | 289 | |
| Schuylkill Valley | 51 | 176 | 168 | 405 | |
| Hamburg | 101 | 150 | 21 | 275 | |
| Annville-Cleona | 126 | 64 | 253 | 351 | |
| Berks Catholic | 64 | 36 | 30 | 145 | |
| Lancaster Catholic | 63 | 81 | 38 | 208 | |
| Columbia | 215 | 154 | 135 | 511 | |
| Pequea Valley | 136 | 186 | 15 | 365 |
Bahr produced the biggest game of the season: 253 yards against Annville-Cleona. That’s the sixth-most ever by a Kutztown player. He went over 100 three other times.
Sherry twice topped 200 yards and five other times went over 100. He finished with 1,351 yards, second-most in school history. Calvin Laing set the program record 20 years ago with 1,569 yards. Sherry finished with 2,608 career yards, also No. 2 in program history.
“For us to finish the way that we finished, knowing that they got banged up (throughout the season), was phenomenal,” Chester said. “I’m so proud of the work they all put in.”
The Cougars were motivated to achieve their 3K dream but had no idea at the time how special it was. In the days after they began to learn just how unique it was.
“That’s definitely a mark on history, so I’m excited about it,” Sherry said.
“Making history was fun, especially sending the seniors off with a win,” Walters said, “(but) I don’t think we knew how big of a deal it was.”
