Muhlenberg’s turnaround season built on trust, belief
2025 Berks football coverage presented by
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Rob Flowers will tell you that the most important thing he did when he became Muhlenberg’s football coach before last season was to create the structure of a winning football program. To instill discipline, put standards in place, develop a work ethic.
What he did most of all was create hope. The Muhls had none of that before.
Year after year they lost . . . eight games . . . nine game. . . all 10 of them in 2019.
Connor Kantner remembers coming up through the program and seeing no light at the end of the tunnel.
“We didn’t really have much culture,” the senior offensive lineman said.
Flowers instilled that, too. He reminded his young players that not so long ago Muhlenberg football was the standard around the Inter-County League. He told them they were part of a community of winners – that’s the brand he immediately stamped on the program – and they bought in.
Last season, Flowers’ first, things fell into place immediately. After winning all of five games — total — in the previous six seasons the Muhls turned the corner. They surprised a lot of people with a season-opening win over Schuylkill Valley and were competitive in most of their other games. They ended the season holding aloft a trophy after beating William Allen for the Eastern Conference Class 5A/6A championship.
It was a start.
“Everybody came together,” Kantner said. “We worked hard (this past) offseason. In the summer we really kicked it into go.”
All of that preparation paid off handsomely. The Muhls won their first six games and eight overall – their most in 20 years. That was more than enough to earn a spot in the District 3 Tournament. Muhlenberg plays its first district playoff game in 12 years when it heads to Spring Grove Friday for a Class 5A opener.
“We’ve come a long way,” said senior linebacker Cooper Burr. “We just look like a whole different team.”
“It’s beautiful to be in districts with our guys, and with our program,” Flowers said. “Friday (after last week’s regular season finale) we weren’t handing in our stuff (like most years), we were coming to put our stuff in the bin to get washed, to come back to practice Monday.”
The Muhls know what playoff football feels like. They played the two best teams in the Class 5A field, top-seeded Conestoga Valley (10-0) and Exeter (8-2), during their Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 2 schedule.
Their Week 7 match-up against Exeter was like a playoff game. Both teams were unbeaten and there was a big crowd in Laureldale. The Eagles flexed their muscles and reminded everyone who was boss in winning 42-12.
The same thing happened last week when the Buckskins were up 28-0 by halftime on the way to a 45-24 win.
It was the two weeks in between, against Ephrata and Academy Park, where the Muhls were showed the strides they’ve made.
They gave up a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns and trailed Ephrata 28-27 in Week 8. They needed a touchdown run by Cameron Small with 4 ½ minutes left to win it, 33-28.
A week later they were down 11 points early in the fourth before they produced a pair of scores in the final 5 ½ minutes, the last on a Freddy Lacey’s fourth-down touchdown catch with 28 seconds left.
Comeback wins like those are worth their weight in gold, especially for an emerging program such as Muhlenberg’s.
Flowers said the most important aspect of his team isn’t the determination of All-State tailback Cameron Small, the rapid improvement of sophomore quarterback Adriel Baez, or the dual-threat receiver combination of Lacey and Michael Miller Jr. It’s the belief his players have in their coaches, their system, and their teammates.
“Our young men don’t come back to win those games in Week 8 and Week 9 if they didn’t believe,” he said.
“After the Exeter game there were some doubts (about us),” Kantner said. “Maybe we’ll shut down . . . maybe we’ll stop (playing hard). I never thought that. After that loss to Exeter we realized there’s another level we need to get to.”
