Schuylkill Valley season-ender shaping up ‘like a Super Bowl’
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Bruce Harbach’s first Schuylkill Valley team won just two games, but he saw something better on the horizon.
“I knew down the road that we’d be pretty good,” he said.
He talked up his freshman class, comparing some of the players favorably to the ones he coached at Lancaster Catholic, where he won pair of state titles and dominated play in Section 3 of the Lancaster-Lebanon League, at the time the smallest of the league’s three sections.
Three years later the vision is coming to fruition.
The Panthers, built around a senior class that came in on the ground floor with Harbach, are one win away from winning their first outright championship.
“It feels like it’s too good to be true,” said senior tight end Luke Spotts, the league’s leading receiver. “It’s all falling into place.”
If the Panthers (6-0, 7-2) beat Lancaster Catholic (5-1, 6-3) Friday in the regular season finale at Schuylkill Valley Stadium they’ll be the first team in the program’s 52-year history to make a perfect run through league play. They’ll be able to hold aloft a championship trophy with two hands – not sharing it, as they did a year ago.
“Everything’s just setting up,” said record-setting quarterback Logan Nawrocki. “Senior Night, last game, championship. It’s like a Super Bowl in a way. Everything’s down to this.”
It all sounds so good, but then it did a year ago at this time. The Panthers were in the same position when they went to Lancaster Catholic to complete the regular season. A win would’ve given them the outright title. Instead they had to share it with the Crusaders and Annville-Cleona after a 35-14 loss.
“Last year was just embarrassing,” said Spotts, “that’s the only way to put it. It got out of hand it; wasn’t really close at all.”
The Panthers were within 21-14 early in the second half after Nawrocki’s touchdown pass to Kowen Gerner but the Crusaders pulled away after that, getting a clinching 62-yard TD run from Brandon Way midway through the fourth quarter.
Harbach says he’s trying not to bring that game up (though he has). Nawrocki doesn’t even want to think about it.
“It’s a sore subject,” he said.
“It was disappointing,” Harbach said, “but in the same breath we won a section championship, first time in school history. The kids have to be proud of that. Now they’re going after their second one.”
Harbach came to Schuylkill Valley in 2021, inheriting a program that had gone through seven straight losing seasons.
In his second season the Panthers reeled off six straight wins and qualified for the District 3 Tournament. They had a chance to share the Section 5 title but saw Lancaster Catholic kick a field goal in the final seconds to pull out a 44-41 Week 10 victory.
Last year they set a program record by putting together eight straight wins, won a program-record nine games, and won their first postseason game since 2012.
“We always knew our (senior) class had something special,” Spotts said. “We’ve all be close since forever. Coach Harbach saw that we had something special, and he trusts us. We just needed to trust the process and get better as a group.”
This season didn’t start off smoothly. The Panthers took early losses to Muhlenberg and Fleetwood. They haven’t been able to adequately replace record-setting tailback Dominic Giuffre and come up with a consistent running game.
They’ve compensated for that by putting more emphasis on controlling the ball with the passing game, and Nawrocki and his veteran receivers have come through. He’s completing nearly 70 percent of his passes – his current rate of 69.5 % would be a Berks record – and leads the league with 1,889 passing yards and 27 TD throws.
He’s the program leader with 4,437 career passing yards; his 55 TD throws are fourth-most in Berks history.
Spotts leads the league with 42 receptions and is second with 706 receiving yards. Gerner, a wide receiver, is averaging 17.3 yards on his 33 catches, second-highest among the league’s leading receivers. Spotts, Gerner, and senior wideout Dillon Lackner each have seven TD catches.
Lancaster Catholic has weapons, too. It is averaging 34.8 points, tops in Section 5.
Quarterback David Stefanow has topped 1,000 passing yards for the second straight season.
Brandon Way is one of the league’s top players. He was a three-way all-league pick as a junior – Athlete, kick returner and defensive back – and leads the league with 21 touchdown runs. He is averaging 8.7 yards per carry and has rushed for 1,421 yards, third-most in the league.
Lancaster Catholic is looking for its 13th outright section championship; Schuylkill Valley is looking for its first.
“It’s all ours if we win,” Nawrocki said. “This is a big game that we obviously want to win. We’ve just got to play how we’ve been playing all year and I think we’ll be good.”
