How Wyomissing ended the longest winning streak in America

By Mitch Rupert — MikeDragoSports special correspondent
CATAWISSA — Southern Columbia defensive back Austin Helwig saw the sweep coming to his side. The senior placed his 5-8, 170-pound frame at the line of scrimmage looking to set an edge to stop the Wyomissing running play in its tracks.

Helwig had barely gotten to his spot when a freight train named Jven Williams ran him into the ground with all 310 pounds of his 6-foot-5 frame.

That block from Williams created an alley running back Charlie McIntyre could have driven a school bus through. After turning the corner, McIntyre ran free to the end zone, some 80 yards away.

“I love pulling like that,” Williams said after Wyomissing’s 41-21 win over Southern Columbia Friday night in the GoBigRecruiting.com Game of the Week. “That’s my favorite thing to do. I like to get in front of the running backs. That’s my mission before every single game and I love to do it.”

McIntyre’s touchdown in the third quarter was the Spartans’ second scoring run of the night which traversed more than 40 yards. The first was an Amory Thompson 41-yard run on the game’s fifth play. The two splash plays bookended a night in which Wyomissing controlled the line of scrimmage from start to finish against the four-time defending Class AA state champion Tigers.

The two explosive touchdown runs made for great television highlights but it was the dirty work in between from the Spartans’ units up front, offensively and defensively, which led to such a thorough dismantling of the Tigers.

“I’ve played with these guys my whole life, so I knew we could do it,” Wyomissing tight end Aiden Mack said. “I saw Jven Williams running over people all night. I saw Jack Miller getting blocks off the edge. We knew we had what it takes to make plays.”

That Wyomissing made plays was no surprise. What caught fans by surprise was how consistently the Spartans made them. Southern Columbia have been the epitome of dominating play in the trenches during Jim Roth’s legendary tenure. It has pummeled opponents for decades with physical, disciplined play on its way to a record 11 state championships.

Wyomissing flipped that script in snapping the Tigers’ 65-game winning streak — one short of the state record, held by Clairton.

The Spartans’ defense put Southern’s offensive line on skates, often moving the line of scrimmage into the Tigers’ own backfield. The O-line created lanes on sweeps that would have made Vince Lombardi giddy.

Calling the performance up front anything short of dominant would be a disservice to those two groups of Wyomissing players. They set the tone from the first series when Thompson put the Spartans ahead with his 41-yard jaunt. 

“They were bigger and more powerful than what we’ve seen in the last couple weeks,” Roth said. “They executed play after play and we were not responding.”

For a complete gallery of photos from the game, click here.

“I thought coming in we would be able to move the ball,” Wyomissing coach Bob Wolfrum said. “We got their flank a lot. We had trouble getting up inside, but we got big plays off the edge.”

Wyomissing’s 46 runs included 10 carries for 10 yards or more. Many of those came on the perimeter where the Spartans sent multiple linemen pulling to get out in front of a dynamic group of running backs.

Many times it was Williams, a hot Division 1 prospect, leading the way like a bulldozer.

“Jven puts a lot of people on their back,” said Wyomissing running back Drew Eisenhower. “It’s nice that I don’t have to worry about people touching me when I’m coming around that corner.”

“Nobody’s ever complained about having a four-star tackle with 10 Division I offers on their team, so it’s great to have him,” Mack said. “He’s 6-5 and 310 pounds and he moves people. That’s all you can ask for.”

It’s easy to point to Williams and how much better he makes the Spartans’ offensive front. But it was a collective effort from Williams, Jack Miller, Jack Gartner, Preston Aikman, Julian DiMao and Mack, which made Wyomissing’s offense so dangerous.

It would make sense for Williams to protect the blind side of quarterback Ben Zechman on each and every play. But the Spartans transform him into “Where’s Waldo” along the line from play to play and it allows the offense to work at peak efficiency.

“We might be the only team in the nation still running our system like that,” Wolfrum said. “I gotta tell you, I don’t even know where (Williams) is from play to play. So if other teams are able to figure it out, good for them. But they all line up so they can perform the block they’re best at.”

Defensively Wyomissing always looked comfortable against Southern Columbia’s Wing-T attack because they’re familiar with the keys they read to identify plays. The concern was about Gavin Garcia’s ability to reverse field and turn a busted play into a big play. The Spartans saw the reigning Class AA Player of the Year’s ability to do just that on a second-quarter kickoff in which Garcia started toward the right sideline only to reverse course when he was bottled up before finishing an 82-yard touchdown return.

The story of the week of preparation for the Wyomissing defense was discipline to ensure it maintained its contain assignments while also trying to push into the Tigers’ backfield. And that’s exactly what it did. Garcia broke just one long run, a 61-yard touchdown on the first play of the second half. Other than that the All-Stater had just one more run of at least 10 yards and only one other which went for at least 7 yards.

“(Garcia) had some great runs that didn’t gain any yardage, but he broke four tackles in the meantime,” Wolfrum said. “But it wasn’t only about preventing the cutbacks. It was about stopping him when you make contact with him because he runs out of so many tackles.”

“The first time he tried to cut back on us we showed that we weren’t going to let it happen at all,” Williams said. “We made sure we were staying at home and staying disciplined.”

It all led to a result which stopped Southern Columbia short of making history. The Tigers fell one game shy of tying Clairton’s state record of 66 consecutive wins.

To stop it, it took a program with as much history as Wyomissing has, putting up one of its best performances. None of it was surprising to the guys in white jerseys. But to actually see it come to fruition surely was a good sign midway through the season.

“I knew we had the potential to do it,” Mack said. “But it’s about following the game plan and believing you can do it.”