Football Notebook: Early rise, passing remarks, high-test runners and more
2023 Berks football coverage presented by
Utilities Employees Credit Union
The Fleetwood Tigers will load their team bus and head to their next game in darkness – just as they would for a state playoff game in November.
Due to conflicting circumstances the Tigers play Saturday at 10 a.m. at Kennard-Dale, 77 miles away, which means they’ll be hitting the road at 6:15 a.m. and hitting the snooze button a few times around 5.
“Nothing about it’s ideal,” said Fleetwood coach Steve Pangburn, “but we’re gonna roll with the punches.”
The game was moved from Friday to Saturday because of a shortage of officials in the YCIAA; there aren’t enough to go around on a Friday night.
Fleetwood High School requested an early start so that its players can return home in time to participate in the borough’s parade commemorating its 150th anniversary. The parade begins at 2 and the football players will ride on a float.
Pangburn expects his team to arrive at Kennard-Dale, located in southern York County not far from the Maryland border, about 8 a.m. That could mean an abbreviated warm-up session. Players will have snacks on the bus and will have food and drinks available upon arrival in Fawn Dale.
“We need to do what we need to do,” Pangburn said. “Our backs are against the wall.”
The Tigers have lost three straight after a promising start. The Rams are 2-3 and coming off a 38-20 win over West York. They opened the season with a 56-7 loss to Wyomissing.
High-test runners
(PhilMarPhoto)
Twin Valley has never had a ballcarrier average better than 10 yards per carry (with at least 50 carries) in a season.
The Raiders currently have two.
Drew Engle is averaging 12.6 yards per carry, second-highest in the Lancaster-Lebanon League; teammate Evan Johnson is averaging 10.3 yards per carry, fourth-best in the league.
No Berks team over the last 40 years has finished the season with two 10-plus backs. Reading High came close in 2003. All-State pick Kalise Cook averaged 12.1 yards per carry. Jason Poulson averaged an astonishing 18.2 yards over 41 carries but didn’t meet the 50-carry threshold.
The league’s other high-test runners this season: Cocalico’s Aaryn Longenecker (14.4) and Josh Meyer (11.7) and Lampeter-Strasburg’s Jonathan Mellinger (10.0).
Passing remarks
Some of the first-half passing figures around the Lancaster-Lebanon League are ridiculous.
Halfway through the regular season Tyler Shuey has matched the Hamburg record for touchdowns passes in a season with 16 and is closing in on the yardage record of 1,883, set last season by Xander Menapace. Shuey has passed for a league-best 1,449.
(Joe Mays photo)
Manheim Township’s Hayden Johnson is the league’s top-rated passer. He’s thrown for 1,360 yards, has completed 74.3 percent of his throws and has 22 TDs without an interception. The eight teams in Section 4 have combined for 24 TD passes.
Wilson’s Tommy Hunsicker has thrown for 1,071 yards; he’s on pace to become the sixth passer in program history to reach 2,000 yards.
Schuylkill Valley’s Logan Nawrocki has thrown 15 TD passes; the program record is 22. With All-State running back Dominic Giuffre out for a couple more games he’s sure to put the ball up more often in the next few weeks.
Manheim Central’s Zac Hahn is one of four passers in the league who have topped 1,000 yards. He has a 15-to-1 touchdowns-to-interceptions ratio. He is the second-ranked passer in the league, one slot ahead of Shuey.
Garden Spot’s Kye Harting has numbers like no other QB in the league: 906 passing yards, 637 rushing yards. He has a 20-2 touchdowns-to-interceptions ratio and is averaging nearly 9 yards per carry (that includes negative sack yardage).
Johnson last week became the 10th passer in league history to reach 6,000 career yards. Lancaster Catholic’s Kyle Smith owns that mark with 8,873 yards. One-time leader Chad Henne (7,071) is now No. 6 on the list.
The undefeated
After losses by Cedar Crest, Lampeter-Strasburg and Elco in Week 5 there are now just seven unbeaten teams in the Lancaster-Lebanon League.
Manheim Township, Exeter, Wyomissing, and Lancaster Catholic are the lone unbeatens in Sections 1, 2, 4 and 5, respectively.
In Section 3 Twin Valley, Ephrata and Garden Spot are each 2-0 in the league and 5-0 overall. One of those will drop from the ranks of the unbeatens Friday as Ephrata plays at Garden Spot.
Twin Valley gets those teams in Weeks 7 and 8, playing Garden Spot at home and then Ephrata on the road. The Raiders beat Garden Spot 37-29 last season, then lost at Ephrata 35-13.
(PhilMarPhoto)
Streaking
Exeter’s 17-game regular season winning streak is the longest in program history.
The Eagles’ last regular season loss came in October 2021 to Gov., Mifflin.
Prior to this streak the Eagles’ longest streak had been 13 in a row, over the 2014-16 seasons.
The Eagles went unbeaten in 1967 and 1970 but couldn’t add on consecutive wins the following seasons.
Matt Bauer, now in his 15th season as head coach, is 13 wins away from Don Thomas’ program record of 123; Thomas coached 24 seasons.
Wyomissing extended the Berks record of consecutive regular season wins to 40 last week with a 28-14 victory over Elco.
Hitting a triple
A win by Twin Valley Friday over Elizabethtown will clinch a third straight winning season for the Raiders, a first for the program.
The Raiders have finished above .500 just four times in their first 27 seasons and never had back-to-back winning seasons before last year, when they followed a 6-5 finish in 2021 with a 7-5 record.
Brett Myers, halfway through his second season as head coach, already ranks third in program history in wins with 12. He is one of just two coaches with a winning record.
Stats ’n stuff
Sam McCracken became Ephrata’s all-time passing leader last week when he threw for 287 yards against Daniel Boone and topped 3,400 yards. . . Exeter is allowing 8.8 points per game, second-lowest in the league and third-lowest in District 3. The Eagles are ranked No. 4 in the league against the run and No. 4 in total defense. . . Exeter’s defense is also tops in Berks with eight interceptions; Twin Valley is next with seven.
Trivial matters
Twin Valley is on pace to crush the program scoring record. The Raiders are averaging 43.0 points per game; the program record is 32.2, set last year. . . Octorara is the only team in the league to have surpassed its 2022 win total. It finished 1-9 last season; the Braves are 2-3.
