Quaker Valley’s tear made lasting memories
In the aftermath of Quaker Valley’s clash with Middletown for the PIAA Class 3A football championship, the tears were flowing from Hershey to Sewickley.
Mind you, those waterworks weren’t caused by sadness. It was an unbridled feeling of joy after the Quakers claimed the title with a convincing 41-24 romp on the snow-covered turf of Hersheypark Stadium.
The tight-knit community of former players, alumni, students and fans filled buses and made the trek halfway across the state to see the Quakers make history last Saturday afternoon. They followed coach Jerry Veshio and his squad back to Sewickley where they were greeted in town with a police car and fire truck escort back to the school.
“When they got off the bus, Jerry was holding a football and he was crying,” said Dan O’Neill, a former Quakers quarterback who graduated in 1978. “I started crying with him. I just said, ‘I can’t believe this.’”
O’Neill and his four older brothers all played football for Quaker Valley. So did his two sons and nephews. But not once did any of those teams, or any other in the school’s six-decade history, reach the heights that the 2017 team did.
In early August, as the regular season loomed, former coach John Tortorea stepped down. In came Veshio, who had not coached football since the 1980s. As Veshio noted, there was turmoil and an uneasy feeling about the season ahead. But as soon as he saw his players on the practice field, he knew he had something special. They worked hard. They lifted hard. They made it look easy when new plays were introduced, executing them like they had been running them their whole lives.
Steve Masterani, a 1973 grad and three-year starter at running back and linebacker, ran into Veshio at a coffee shop on his way to work one late-summer morning.
“He told me these kids get it,” recalled Masterani. “I believed him.”
Masterani, as he typically does, never missed a game this season. During his three seasons of high school football, the most any team ever won was four times in a season. Those were “lean years,” as he put it. Masterani said he was so happy after the state championship, “I could have floated home from Hershey.”
As the wins began to pile up, that kind of feeling swelled in the community.
“People that would go to maybe one game every five years, they were coming to every game,” said O’Neill. “Everywhere you went, people were talking about Quaker Valley football.”
One of the high points occurred when the Quakers avenged the only blemish on their 14-1 record by defeating Beaver Valley Conference rival Aliquippa at Heinz Field to claim the first WPIAL title in school history.
“To win any game 2-0 is a very unique situation,” said 1997 graduate Scott Molitor, who played running back and defensive back. “For that to occur at Heinz Field on the biggest stage and to beat Aliquippa? That’s definitely a team of destiny.”
Molitor won a WPIAL title as a basketball player at Quaker Valley. Even that momentous occasion paled in comparison to what the football squad did this year.
“Nothing rallies a community in Western Pennsylvania like football does,” he said.
The question now becomes, where does Quaker Valley go from here? Veshio stood firm in his stance that this season was his last. Whoever the new coach is will inherit a team that will have graduated standouts players and senior leaders such as linebacker Andrew Seymour and quarterback Ricky Guss.
Guss threw for more than 2,000 yards and 28 touchdowns while racking up another 1,000 yards on the ground. Ethan Moore could be his replacement next season and will have his work cut out for him.
Despite losing those key seniors, there is plenty of optimism for another strong team. Leading receiver Ryan Jakovic, who grabbed 21 passes for 427 yards and three touchdowns, will be back. So will Isaac Guss, Ricky’s younger brother who was a force at linebacker.
It will be nearly impossible to replicate that improbable run. No matter what happens from here on out, the memory of the 2017 team will go down in local lore as one that set new standards while the community rallied around them.
“They just started to roll and it was amazing,” said O’Neill. “It galvanized the whole community.”