It’s nice to be No. 1 in the state but for now that matters little to Twin Valley
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Predictably, Brett Myers wasn’t all that excited Tuesday when he learned his Twin Valley football team had ascended to No. 1 in the state rankings.
“It’s unimportant until the end of the year,” he said after seeing the Raiders rise to the top spot in the PennLive.com Class 4A rankings.
True. State rankings don’t put points on the board on a Friday night. They don’t get you a bye in the playoffs or home-field advantage in the postseason.
| Results | |||
| Twin Valley | 42 | Berks Catholic | 16 |
| Twin Valley | 40 | Selinsgrove | 10 |
| Twin Valley | 69 | Olney Charter | 0 |
| Twin Valley | 51 | Elco | 7 |
| Twin Valley | 49 | Octorara | 7 |
Myers knows that as well as anyone. His Middletown team was ranked No. 1 in the state in Class 3A in 2018 heading into the PIAA championship game against Aliquippa.
Myers says he doesn’t remember being at the top of the rankings. What he does recall is that Middletown didn’t win its final game. To him, that’s all that matters.
“The goal is to play the best game of your life the last game of the season,” he said. “That’s been the goal since I became a head coach, and it’s still the goal, whether it’s Week 10, Week 11, whatever it may be. You want to be able play your best game the last game.”
That’s the way football coaches speak and think: It’s always about being better this week than you were last week.
There’s no time in late September or October or even November to look at the big picture or take a moment to reflect.
We can afford to do that here because what Myers and his program have done is pretty incredible to this point. Twin Valley is just the third Berks County team ever to rise to No. 1 in the state football rankings, joining Wyomissing and Gov. Mifflin. Until last year the Raiders had never cracked the Top 10.
Until very recently Twin Valley has had a mostly dismal football history. The Raiders were late to the game; they didn’t field a team until 1996. Like most programs it took a while to get up and running: The Raiders won just six games over their first five seasons.
They enjoyed their first winning record in their ninth season and won their first Berks League section title in 2007, beating Wyomissing to earn it.
A decade ago the program was back on the bottom again. When the current seniors – Evan Myers, Evan Johnson, Aris Drake – were 6 and 7 years old Twin Valley went 0-10 in back-to-back seasons.
The bottom is a long way from the top, but there is a path.
The program began to find some success, finishing with a .500 record four times in five seasons under Dean Owens from 2016-20. The Raiders finished 6-5 in 2021, the year before Myers became head coach.
In his three seasons the Raiders have taken giant steps forward, going 7-5 in 2022 and 10-2 last season, setting a program record for victories. They have won district playoff games in each of his first two seasons.
They have reached an even higher level this season. They are 5-0 and beating teams by an average of 42.2 points, highest in the Lancaster-Lebanon League.
They are simply stacked. They have a four-year starter at quarterback, Evan Myers, who will end up throwing for more yards than anyone in Berks history not named Chad Henne. They have a pair of 1,000-yard running backs, Johnson and Drew Engle. They have outstanding linemen: Drake, Carter Faubel, and Greyson Miller were each all-league picks as juniors.
They have a dangerous play-maker on the edge in Ben Grundy and a standout sophomore linebacker in Lucas Myers, the youngest of the head coaches’ two sons.
They have a bunch of role players doing important jobs. Among Myers’ strengths as a coach is being able to recruit within his own school, to encourage other top athletes to play football, and then to shape them into winning players.
The Raiders have done most of this without Engle, a two-way starter and one of the league’s top players. He hasn’t seen the field since an injury in Week 1.
The Raiders are deep enough to withstand his absence; they have averaged more than 52 points per game without Engle, who set a program rushing record last season.
Not everyone is on the same page when it comes to Twin Valley’s prowess. It is not included among the Pittsburgh Tribune’s Top 5 Class 4A rankings; Lampeter-Strasburg and Wyomissing, which play in Section 4 with Twin Valley, are. Bonner-Prendergast is No. 1.
The Pennsylvania Football News has Twin Valley at No. 5, just ahead of Lampeter and Wyo; Aliquippa remains its No. 1 team.
Word is not yet out about the Raiders. They aren’t a traditional power; they’ve never reached the state playoffs. They haven’t built that reputation yet.
When pressed Myers will admit that he appreciates seeing his team recognized as one of the best in the state.
“It’s nice to know that this group of kids, who’ve worked really hard, who have played together for a long time, that somebody outside of the area recognizes that they’re playing at a high level,” he said. “I’ve got a great group of assistants; some of those guys have been at Twin Valley for a long time. Between the players and coaches, it’s just good to know that people recognize them.”
The question remains as to just how good this Twin Valley team is. It won’t face its first serious challenge until its eighth game when it faces Wyomissing; the following week it plays at Lampeter-Strasburg.
“We’ll find out how good we are when the season’s over,” Myers said. “I don’t know how good anybody is right now. I’m not sure of that yet; we’ll see how the season plays out.”
