Mustangs ready to write final chapter of historic run through Berks Football League
Nate Goodman and Braylon Stewart can’t remember a time when Gov. Mifflin’s football team wasn’t on top in the Berks Football League. They’re far too young.
The seniors grew up in a Mifflin program that has enjoyed an unprecedented run of success. If the Mustangs (2-0, 7-0) beat Berks Catholic (3-1, 6-3) Friday in the regular season finale they will claim their third straight Section 1 title . . . their fifth in six years . . . their 13th in 15 years . . . on and on it goes.
It’s been 19 seasons since the Mustangs finished with a losing record. To Stewart, Goodman and their teammates that fact is like hearing about the moon landing or the stock market crash of 1929 — ancient history.
“Very few people know where we came from,” former Mifflin head coach Mick Vecchio, now an assistant coach, said on a recent edition of the Mike Drago Sports podcast. “We (coaches) haven’t forgotten at all.”
Vecchio’s early years as head coach, in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, were a checkered lot: Good seasons mixed with bad ones. The 1-10 record in 1993 left a searing memory for the players and coaches who went through it.
“I thought (that 1-10 season) was my fault,” jokes Jeff Lang, then in his second year as an assistant in the program, now the head coach of a team that’s been ranked No. 1 in the state in Class 5A for most of the season.
| Berks Section 1 standings: 2004-2021 | ||
| Gov. Mifflin | 95-10 | .905 |
| Berks Catholic | 6-2 | .750 |
| Conrad Weiser | 56-34 | .622 |
| Exeter | 55-51 | .519 |
| Pottsville | 37-37 | .500 |
| Daniel Boone | 47-51 | .479 |
| Muhlenberg | 42-64 | .396 |
| Reading High | 20-47 | .298 |
| Blue Mountain | 7-23 | .233 |
| Twin Valley | 10-44 | .185 |
| Fleetwood | 0-12 | .000 |
“When I came here, I saw the way things were, and saw we had to change the culture,” Lang said, “and Mick did that. (But) it was a struggle.”
The Mustangs are riding a wave of extended success few programs have enjoyed. Next week they’ll head to the postseason for the 18th straight season, and they’ll do it on top, as the defending District 3 champ and the No. 1 seed.
They didn’t join what had been known as the Inter-County League until 2004; in their relatively short time in the league they have dominated it thoroughly. They have won 90.5 percent of their games, with just 10 league losses sprinkled over those 18 seasons. More recently they’ve gone 62-2 in league play: There was a loss to Exeter and Michal Menet in 2015, and another to Conrad Weiser in 2018.
Stewart, now a defensive end, was a ball boy on the last Mifflin team to lose a league game.
“Everybody was sad because they didn’t win it,” he remembers.
It’s not an emotion he has felt since.
Last season the Mustangs won their Section 1 games by an average of 46.7 points — nearly 10 points higher than the previous record for unbeaten section champs (set by Mifflin’s 2017 championship team). This year has been no different. Granted, they have played just two league games — a 54-21 win over playoff-bound Exeter and 49-0 over Muhlenberg — but the results have been similar.
Reading High was forced to forfeit its league game vs. Mifflin, but you can pretty much figure how that one would’ve turned out. It was 49-6 the last time they played, in 2019, and Nick Singleton has only gotten bigger and faster since then.
With Singleton, considered the top running back in the nation, returning along with eight other starters the Mustangs expected to be good again this season. But this good?
“I was confident,” said Goodman, a tackle and defensive end. “We’ve had a lot of (new) guys step up and show that we could do the job, and be almost as good as (the guys they replaced). I’m proud of how far we’ve come as a team.”
This will be the Mustangs’ final chance to add to their history-making run. This weekend closes the book on the Berks Football League; next year the league’s 13 teams become associate members of the Lancaster-Lebanon League. The I-C will be no more.
The only thing standing in Mifflin’s way now is a Berks Catholic team with one of the league’s most potent offenses. The Saints are averaging 34 points and over 314 yards per game. Christian Cacchione is fourth in the league with 17 touchdowns and is closing in on 1,000 rushing yards; Josiah Jordan has 16 scores, averages 8.3 yards per carry and over 25 yards per reception.
The Saints have plenty to play for, too. With a win they’ll grab a share of their first Section 1 title — not to mention send shock waves across the state. They’re currently ranked No. 1 in the Class 4A district rankings and likely need a win to hold onto that.
“Berks Catholic’s the caliber team that they’re gonna play four quarters,” Lang said. “They’re pretty good; they’re a lot better than they were last year. They’re playing well, they’re playing confident, their athletes are making big plays, their line looks good. They’ve impressed us.”