Gateway hopes long playoff run pays dividends
Gateway coach Don Holl had a routine planned for the Gators’ last practice of the season.
Two underclassmen join together and balance one senior on their shoulders, with another underclassmen right behind them as a backspot. The younger players would carry the seniors off the field to commemorate their last practice as Gateway football players.
The only problem? Week after week, Gateway didn’t get eliminated. The season continued until a 49-14 loss to Archbishop Wood Dec. 8 in the PIAA Class 5A championship. The Vikings have now won four of the past five titles.
“We did that like six weeks,” Holl said. “So it was kind of fun and funny, but at the same time, last week, when it was Thursday, we knew that no matter what the result of the game was, this was really it. This was the last practice for those guys. And when you get really close to them and they care a lot about you and you care a lot about them, and you all care about each other, it’s tough to think in those terms.”
While it may be time for the last game for this group of Gators, they put Gateway back on the map after missing the playoffs in back-toback seasons in 2014 and 2015.
In Holl’s second year at the helm, the Gators avenged their only regularseason loss, a 28-0 loss to Penn-Trafford, in their first WPIAL championship win since 1986. They had lost a heartbreaker McKeesport, 48-31, in the 2015 WPIAL Class 5A semifinal. Gateway’s PIAA championship appearance was the first for the Gators, as they began in 1988.
Outlasting their Western Pa. competition was one of the team’s biggest hurdles, Holl said.
“You know, I just think it’s really hard to win the WPIAL,” Holl said. “And I don’t mean to slight the state process. Obviously we lost to a state champion. Our league is really good, top to bottom, with a lot of good coaches and a lot of good players and programs. When all is said and done, you’ve got to really climb a mountain to get through that thing.”
A big reason why the Gators did was senior quarterback Brady Walker, who finished his career as the No. 3 leading passer in WPIAL history with 8,816 yards and 85 touchdowns, and junior receiver Courtney Jackson, who had 1,245 receiving yards for 17 touchdowns.
They’ll lose Walker, but retain Jackson, as well as freshman running back Derrick Davis and defensive back Jeremiah Josephs.
One of the benefits to a 16game season, even if it didn’t end the way he would have wanted, was Holl’s younger players gathering experience on the Gators’ playoff run -— and a little extra lifting after practice, too.
“I think one of the overlooked things is we played 16 games,” Holl said. “That’s like an NFL season without any byes. Playing 16 games, in a bad sense, is it’s an awful lot of wear and tear and an awful lot of reps and all that stuff. But in the good sense, it’s like a whole half a season or more for your young guys to practice. So our freshmen, by the middle of the season we didn’t think of them as freshmen any more.to But after 16 weeks, you almost think of them like a junior.”