Football Notebook: Blue bloods, percentage play, 100 catches and more
2023 Berks football coverage presented by
Utilities Employees Credit Union
The District 3 Class 4A field is loaded.
Bishop McDevitt is the defending PIAA champ and owns 16 district championships.
Manheim Central, also a former state champ, has won a record 18 district titles.
Lampeter-Strasburg won its third district championship just a couple years ago.
Twin Valley . . . eh, the Raiders won . . . well, they won a district game last year. That brought the program total to . . . ahem, one.
Indeed, the Raiders sort of stick out in this elite group, don’t they? They produced two winning records in their first quarter century. Until a couple weeks ago they had never won more than seven games in a season. Until about a month ago they had appeared in the state rankings once their 27-year history.
Now they’re 9-1, the No. 2 seed and enjoying a bye week after recording the best season in program history.
A turnaround like this is about as likely as seeing two teams reach the World Series just two years after each lost 100 games. Wait, that just happened, didn’t it?
The Raiders have been a similar overnight success.
They had never hosted a district playoff game until last year, Brett Myers’ first as head coach. Now they’ve taken the next step, and it’s a big one.
“McDevitt and Manheim are blue bloods of District 3,” Myers said, “and Lampeter’s a team that has some district titles.
“It’s kind of nice to see Twin Valley hanging out with them.”
The Raiders will play the winner of the quarterfinal match-up between No. 7 Elco (7-3) and No. 10 Big Spring (6-4) on Nov. 10. If they win they’ll host either No. 3 Manheim Central (9-1) or No. 6 Susquehanna Township (7-3).
After being competitive in nearly every game during a 6-4 season a year ago Twin Valley has dominated this season. They are No. 1 in the 37-team Lancaster-Lebanon League in total offense, No. 1 in rushing and No. 4 in scoring. They produced a pair of 1,000-yard rushers in the regular season, a rarity.
Their defense, a sore spot last season, improved markedly. They were last in Section 3 in total defense in 2022. They have yielded about a touchdown and nearly 100 total yards less per game this season.
They went into a key Section 3 game at Ephrata in Week 8 with neither of their top rushers, Drew Engle or Evan Johnson, able to go more than a few early plays. Short on firepower, they lost that shootout 52-33.
Fully loaded, that would’ve been a heckuva game; the Raiders might be sitting 10-0 right now.
“I’m really, really happy with our guys and the way they play,” Myers said. “They’ve bought into the idea that the record and the scoreboard don’t dictate who they are, it’s about how well they play.
“We’ve got really tough kids and we’ve got great families that push their kids to excel. We’re right where we need to be and we’re excited to have an opportunity to be together for another two weeks.”
By the numbers
Berks Catholic finished ahead of Hamburg in the District 3 power ratings but will be playing on Hawk Hill when the teams meet Friday in the Eastern Conference Class 3A championship game.
Why?
District 3 and the Eastern Conference use a slightly different power rating formula to rank their teams. District 3 gives a higher priority to strength of schedule; the Eastern Conference, which adopted the District 11 formula, gives a higher priority to a team’s winning percentage.
That’s why the Hawks, who finished 6-4, have a higher EC power rating than the Saints, who finished 4-6. Berks Catholic’s loaded schedule included six teams ranked in the state when they faced them: Loyalsock, Executive Education, Pope John Paul II, Wyomissing, Lampeter-Strasburg and Cocalico.
Just three of Hamburg’s opponents finished with a winning record: Annville-Cleona, Lancaster Catholic and Schuylkill Valley.
Passing marks
Wilson’s Tommy Hunsicker is going to finish his career with some big numbers.
He became the fifth passer in the Lancaster-Lebanon League to surpass 2,000 yards in Friday’s game against unbeaten Manheim Township.
The senior and two-year starter is the sixth quarterback in program history to throw for 2,000 yards in a season and the fifth to top 3,000 in his career.
His season completion percentage of .663 is second-highest, behind Tony Cipolla (.684, 1999); his career completion percentage of .618 is third-highest.
His 23 TD passes are tied for second-most.
His 22 completions in last week’s game are fifth-most in program history; his 319 career completions are third-most.
Hunsicker has thrown for 2,024 yards with 23 TDs and four interceptions. That gives him a 177.5 passing efficiency rating. Only Cipolla (.185.2) finished with a higher mark.
Quite a catch
Mason Musitano missed the second half of last season due to injury. He’s made up for it with a strong finish this season.
The Fleetwood senior had eight receptions in Week 7 against Ephrata, a career-high 9 the next week against Elizabethtown and seven last week in the regular season finale against Daniel Boone.
He has 100 career receptions, topping the program record of 89, set by Michael Allen from 2012-14.
Entering his final high school game, needs one TD catch to match Allen’s program record of 18 and two catches to match the program record of 46 in a season, shared by Tyler Strunk and Steve Hilborn.
The Tigers end their season Friday with an Eastern Conference game at Shamokin.
Don’t repeat this
Four of the five sections of the Lancaster-Lebanon League have new champs this year. Lancaster Catholic, in Section 5, is the only repeat winner, and the Crusaders had to share the title this year with Schuylkill Valley after winning it outright in 2022.
Catholic and Wyomissing have the most wins over the past two seasons, at 19; Exeter is next at 18.
Twin Valley, which improved from 6-4 to 9-1, is one of six teams with a three-win increase. The others: Cedar Crest, Conestoga Valley, Ephrata, Cocalico and Elco.
Solanco had the largest drop-off, finished with seven fewer wins after a 10-0 season. Elizabethtown saw its record flip from 8-2 to 2-8. Last year’s Section 1 champ, Hempfield, had a five-game drop-off.
Chasing 2,000
Fleetwood’s Czion Brickle has rushed for a Berks-leading 1,409 yards and has reached 100 yards eight times, more than any Berks back.
His yardage total is second-highest in program history, as are his 20 touchdowns; Tyler Emge set the record for both in 2014, with 2,000 yards and 28 TDs.
Brickle broke Emge’s single-game rushing record when he went for 306 against Solanco and tied Emge’s record for points in a game, when he scored 30 in that same game.
Brickle needs 125 rushing yards to become the second in program history to reach 2,000 in his career.
Emge is the only player in program history to score five TDs in a game.
Extra points
Berks Catholic lineman Joey Polinsky has committed to play at Cornell. . .
Ethan Lafferty had each of Kutztown’s five interceptions this season; that’s second-most in Berks to Gov. Mifflin’s Reese Hohl, who has six. . .
Nathan Pashley’s 94-yard scoring reception last week against Manheim Central is the longest in Exeter history. The previous record was 90. . .
Dean Rotter finishes at Daniel Boone with 3,393 passing yards, fourth-most in program history. . .
Drew Engle set the Twin Valley single-season rushing mark last week; he’s at 2,465 yards heading into district play next week. . .
Brendan Ackley heads into his senior season at Kutztown needing 570 yards to top Calvin Laing’s career rushing record. Ackley has 2,004 yards. . .
