Wyo opens against top-ranked Southern Columbia team with plenty of holes to fill
2024 Berks football coverage
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(Wyomissing opens its season Saturday against Southern Columbia in a battle of two of the state’s premier programs. Here’s a preview of the Tigers.
By Marc Malkoskie — MikeDragoSports.com correspondent
Ever since the 2019 team put Southern Columbia on the national high school football radar, there have been doubters about whether the Tigers’ record run of consecutive PIAA titles would continue.
In the four years since Southern has silenced those doubters, extending their streak to seven straight PIAA championships, the latest a 21-20 win over Westinghouse in the Class 2A title game.
Based on the lack of personnel returning, this year’s bid to extend that impressive streak may very well be the trickiest yet.
The Tigers are replacing all of their offensive skill players and nine starters on defense.
Southern Columbia entered preseason camp with several starting roles still up for grabs as it prepared for its season-opener Saturday at Wyomissing.
“A lot of our lineup is going to be first-year starters and younger guys who don’t have experience at the varsity level,” said Southern head coach Jim Roth, the winningest coach in Pennsylvania history with 499 victories.
“We have a lot of guys that should be good football players down the road,” Roth said. “You just don’t know how long it’s going to take.”
Despite being in transition, Southern Columbia opens the season ranked No. 1 in the state in Class 2A by PennLive.com; Wyomissing is No. 5 in Class 4A.
The quarterback battle at Southern is between sophomore Ayden Hockenbroch and junior Anthony Martino. Neither; neither has much varsity experience.
No matter which signal-caller gets the nod, Roth expects to have speed and mobility at the position.
“We will incorporate running the quarterback more, which we haven’t done as much in recent years,” Roth said. “That’s a dimension that has really helped our offense in the past. Both of those guys run the ball pretty well, and the fact that we have more than one quarterback we can go to, we’re not as concerned about the quarterback potentially getting banged up.
“As (longtime Berwick coach) George Curry used to say: ‘When you run your quarterback, it’s like having 12 guys.’ That’s definitely going to be an added dimension to our offense this year.”
Like his Wyomissing counterpart Bob Wolfrum, Roth spent the summer assessing the quarterback competition.
“Both of them throw the ball well,” Roth said. “Ayden probably has a little better feet, and Anthony probably has a little better arm right now. It’s really a toss-up. I’ve kicked around the idea of platooning and rotating them.”
Starting at halfback in Southern’s trademark Wing-T offense will be juniors Brayden Andrews and Nate Gallagher, both of whom Roth believes are among his five fastest players. They will also assume the majority of kick returning duties. Sophomore Joey Williams will be the starting fullback.
For the first time in quite a while Southern will start a season with just one returning three-year starter, in three-time all-state inside linebacker Dominic Fetterolf, who had a team-best 136 tackles a year ago.
“He’s going to be a main leader on the team,” Roth said. “He plays inside linebacker, because that’s traditionally where you have a guy that has a leadership role, just in formation recognition and helping communicate with people on defense. So to have our most experienced guy be at that position is a big plus for us.
“We really only have two full-time starters returning, (Ethan) Makowski at defensive end and Dom at linebacker. We have to replace a ton of people on defense.”
Fetterolf said he’s excited about his expanded leadership role.
“I saw all the other kids leading the team in my past years and I really looked up to all of them,” he said, “so I’m glad I’m finally in that spot where the younger kids can look up to me like I used to with the older kids.”
Fetterolf is one of just three in Southern history to eclipse 400 career tackles, joining Michigan State redshirt-senior Cal Haladay and recently-graduated Garrett Garcia, who will be playing for Bloomsburg University this fall.
Roth said he plans have only one or two two-way starters: Senior Travis Wegrzynowicz, who he thinks will be the team’s top wide receiver and defensive back, and maybe Blaise Kissinger, a sophomore who’s expected to at least rotate in at the same positions.
The Tigers’ strength will be their offensive line, which returns each position except the center. However, is strongest part, senior left guard Jude Bremigen, will likely miss the first few weeks as he continues to recover from elbow surgery.
Sophomore Jace Malakoski gives Southern’s its first real receiving threat at tight end in more than a decade.
“He rotated at the position last year, but now he’s a year older and a year smarter,” Roth said. “He’s bigger and stronger, and he’s looked really good catching the football. We’re definitely going to go out of our way to get the ball to (him).”
Southern has faced Wyomissing just once. The Spartans won 41-21 in 2021, ending the Tigers’ 65-game winning streak – longest in the nation – and their 93-game regular season winning streak.
“We’re going to find out pretty quickly how our younger guys are going to respond,” Roth said. “Hopefully we get a lot of development from these guys and they stay away from the injuries so they’re ready to go for the first game. Wyomissing is always good. They have some big kids again. It will certainly be a huge challenge.”
