Chartiers Valley prepping for encore performance
After toiling in mediocrity for the past decade, Chartiers Valley emerged as one of the mostsurprising upstart teams in the WPIAL last season.
Don’t expect the Colts to catch anybody by surprise this year, though.
After a 6-1 regular season earned the school its first trip to the playoffs since 2015, Chartiers Valley has plenty of weapons coming back in 2021 looking to build off the program’s best season in recent memory. Still, it has been 14 years since the Colts last won a playoff game, and coach Dan Knause knows one good year won’t mean much if they don’t use it as a foundation to reach greater heights in the future.
“I think one of the things you’ve got to do to become a winner is learn how to win first,” Knause said. “We did that last year, but at the same time, we were humbled in the playoffs.”
Chartiers Valley’s future looks bright, but there may be no better time than the present for Colts fans. With a supremely talented core and loads of experience on both sides of the ball, this could be Chartiers Valley’s best chance to raise its first WPIAL championship banner in football alongside the numerous basketball banners hanging in its gym.
Of course, it all starts with the quarterback, and the Colts have one of the best in the WPIAL in dual-threat senior Anthony Mackey, who will also start at safety on defense. Mackey is as bright in the classroom as he is on the field, and he recently received an invitation to play at Carnegie Mellon, provided he gets accepted into the school.
“I do think he’s overlooked,” Knause said. “I don’t think people realize how talented he is. He’s a soft-spoken kid, but his skill set in many departments is elite. … He’s rare. He’s a three-sport athlete. He’ll go from being the starting QB to the starting point guard to the starting shortstop. Honestly, I think it’s awesome.”
In eight games last year, Mackey completed nearly 70% of his passes while throwing for 1,056 yards and 11 touchdowns with five interceptions. He also rushed 96 times for 533 yards and seven scores, and Knause even said Mackey is the fastest player on the team — including standout wideouts Abe Ibrahim and Lamont Payne.
“Wedefinitely earned more respect from everybody [last year], and with that comes a target,” Mackey said. “We’ve got to keep improving and getting better and better and go out and do the same thing we did last year, and hopefully win even more.”
Speaking of Ibrahim and Payne, fans should expect to hear their names called early and often at Chartiers Valley games this fall. Last year’s leading receiver for the Colts, Anthony Collura, has graduated after catching 34 passes for 504 yards a year ago, but Ibrahim and Payne appear more than capable of picking up the slack.
“I have big shoes to fill from Anthony. He was a great player on offense and defense,” Ibrahim said. “I’m going to treat every single play and every single game like it’s my last, because it truly is this season.”
Ibrahim, a senior with a 4.7 GPA who holds a scholarship offer from Slippery Rock, is a big-play threat who caught 12 passes for 274 yards and six touchdowns in 2020, averaging nearly 23 yards per catch. He played outside linebacker on defense last season, but Knause said he will shift to safety this fall.
Payne, meanwhile, is one of the most sought-after recruits in the state in the class of 2023, rated as a four-star cornerback prospect by Rivals.com. The junior has received offers from Pitt, Penn State, West Virginia, Syracuse and Virginia Tech, among others. He played every snap on defense last season, and Knause said he’ll see an increased role on offense while also returning punts and kicks.
“Our whole camp, we do what we call ‘mixed bag,’ and we get them to compete,” Knause said. “We’ll put Abe vs. Lamont in those types of situations, because competition is everything.”
A top priority for Knause and his staff in 2021 will be finding a way to replace the lost production of Jordan Demus, who ran for a teamhigh 593 yards as a senior. Knause didn’t seem too worried about filling the void, though, expressing full confidence in senior Pat Mulligan’s ability to step into the featured-back role.
While serving as Demus’ primary backup last season, Mulligan saw plenty of action in two-back sets and carried the ball 39 times for 162 yards and a pair of scores.
“He’s an unsung kid,” Knause said. “He’s just a hardnosed football player who we’ve relied on late in games. He’s a north-south, old-school type of runner, so we’re excited to have him back.”
With all the talent in place at the skill positions, Chartiers Valley’s season may lie in the hands of the big boys. The Colts return only one starter with varsity experience on the offensive line, and Knause knows the new starters will need to grow comfortable quickly in order to compete for a championship alongside the massive lines of teams such as Thomas Jefferson, Aliquippa and Belle Vernon — which ended Chartiers Valley’s season in a 49-21 blowout in last year’s WPIAL Class 4A quarterfinals.
Knause, though, won’t allow his team to look ahead and lose sight of what’s in front of them — even with the Leopards lurking in a highly anticipated Week 2 clash.
“Our program motto is, ‘Make today count.’” Knause said. “If you start getting caught up in perception, you’re not progressing. So we just truly try to get these kids to understand that every day matters, and honestly, a lot of our success last year was based on kids sticking with it through adversity.
“Perception is what it is. You can’t control what other people think, but we’re proud of the program we’ve built just through our daily preparation.”