Raiders ready for history lesson as they prep for legendary Quips
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Brett Myers has trained his Twin Valley football players to not look ahead . . . to concentrate on the task at hand and to focus solely on the next play. It’s one of the reasons the Raiders remain unbeaten heading into Thanksgiving.
Minutes after they secured their first District 3 Class 4A championship Friday by beating Susquehanna Township 41-21 Myers bent that rule. He was already looking ahead to the next challenge, and to the next Friday night.
“I can’t wait!” an animated Myers said of the Raiders’ PIAA semifinal against District 7 champ Aliquippa, which dispatched Oil City 28-6. “These guys should be ecstatic; I know I am.”
It’s not just the chance to extend a to-date perfect season, or the fact that Twin Valley has never ventured this deep into the postseason, that has Myers so jazzed – it’s the opponent.
The Quips are a prominent part of Pennsylvania football history. They have won five PIAA championships and have seen more of their former players inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame than any school in the nation.
“They may be the most storied program in the state of Pennsylvania,” Myers said. “For crying out loud, I mean . . . Mike Ditka . . . Darrell Revis – it’s pretty awesome.”
Ditka won a Super Bowl playing tight end with the Dallas Cowboys and later coached the Chicago Bears to an NFL championship. Revis was considered one of the greatest cover corners in league history when he played for the New England Patriots and New York Jets.
They are joined in Canton by Ty Law, a three-time Super Bowl champ with Patriots, and are among 11 former Quips to play in the NFL.
Twin Valley is still waiting for its first.
That doesn’t mean the Raiders (13-0) need to be intimidated by the Quips (10-3) or their legendary reputation when they meet Friday at 7 at Mifflin County High School. Anything but. Twin Valley is ranked No. 1 in the state in Class 4A and should be considered the favorite in this game.
The Raiders don’t have a long list of college football recruits, as do the Quips, but they’ve put together a powerful resume.
They are the highest-scoring team in Berks history and rank second in the state in scoring average at 52.3 points per game. They put up 42 unanswered points in the district semifinal against a defensive-minded West York team that had allowed fewer points than any District 3 team up to that point, and just 78 in its first 11 games.
After trailing 21-20 at halftime Friday the Raiders shut out a Susquehanna Township team that had scored 87 points in its two previous district games, including 37 against Wyomissing.
The Raiders are allowing 10.0 points per game, second-lowest among Class 4A teams in the state.
Twin Valley is among just six remaining unbeaten teams in the state, along with Harrisburg (6A), Peters Township (5A), Northwestern Leigh (3A), Avonworth (3A) and Springfield-Delco (1A).
Despite its impressive history – including three PIAA championships in the last seven seasons – Aliquippa was not expected to make it this far. The Quips absorbed early losses to Avonworth and New Castle; they thought they had lost their standout quarterback, Marques Council Jr., to a season-ending injury in October.
They were the No. 7 seed entering the WPIAL Tournament but were bolstered when Council Jr. made a surprising return for the postseason. Six weeks after losing to New Castle, they posted a shutout against the Red Hurricanes in a district semifinal rematch. The next week they pulled off an upset, beating top-seeded McKeesport 21-12.
“Everyone had us at the local funeral home,” Aliquippa head coach Mike Warfield told the Beaver County Times, “but when we started the playoffs, I told the kids: ‘Let’s do the impossible.’ ”
Aliquippa is a struggling steel town on the banks of the Ohio River in Beaver County. Like other western Pennsylvania towns, the collapse of the steel industry late in the 20th century sent it into a financial and civic tailspin.
Some believe Aliquippa was one of the inspirations for the 1983 Tom Cruise movie “All The Right Moves.” Cruise plays a high school football player who lives in a fictional town named Ampipe.
Myers is all too familiar with Aliquippa. His Middletown team ran into the Quips in the 2018 PIAA championship game and lost 35-0.
Myers realizes his young players aren’t well-versed in Aliquippa football history. That is about to change.
“They’ll know by the end of the week,” he promised.
