A BANNER SEASON
A season many thought would never happen ended up being one to remember in Berks
For a season many didn’t think would happen, 2020 turned out to be a pretty eventful one for Berks football.
For just the third time, a Berks team played for a state championship, with Wyomissing reaching the Class 3A final.
When Gov. Mifflin made the final four in Class 5A, it marked just the third time Berks had two state semifinalists.
The Spartans and Mustangs each finished ranked No. 2 in the state in their respective classes; it’s believed to be the first time Berks has had two teams finish so high.
Wilson returned to its perch atop Section 1 of the Lancaster-Lebanon League.
Conrad Weiser recorded its first unbeaten regular season since 1996 and shared the Berks Football League Section 2 title with Wyomissing.
The Scouts and Spartans didn’t meet because of the dominant force of the season, COVID-19, which wreaked havoc on schedules, all of which were truncated. That meant almost no non-league games, and in the case of most of the Section 2 teams, playing less than a full league schedule.
The season started three weeks late in Berks, in part because of Gov. Tom Wolf’s threat to shut it all down, in part because the PIAA wanted to give school districts extra time to get classes up and running before dealing with the additional concerns sports presented.
The threat of the virus weighed heavily on administrators, players and coaches, and the season appeared to be on borrowed time as games were postponed and canceled.
In the end the impact wasn’t as great as feared in Berks. A handful of Berks games were canceled and several were threatened due to potential positive cases, but at the end few had complaints.
Save for Reading High, which never was given a chance by its school board, every Berks school played at least six games; Berks Catholic, Exeter and Gov. Mifflin played eight. Wyomissing played 10 — half of them in the postseason.
The Spartans (9-1) ignored the dark cloud that hovered overhead and produced one of their greatest seasons Their only problem was a lack of competition: They averaged a program-record 45.2 points per game, posted the highest margin-of-victory in program history — 37.1, the second-highest all-time in Berks — and mercy-ruled everyone until running up against unbeaten Central Valley in the state championship game.
Section 2 Linebacker of the Year Darren Brunner and Defensive Back of the Year Zach Zechman led Berks’ top-ranked defense; the starting unit didn’t allow a TD until the state semifinals.
Zechman was Berks’ top-rated passer, intercepted more passes (two) than he threw (one) heading into the state title game, and set a program record by completing 11-of12 passes in the state semifinal.
Fullback Evan Niedrowski fronted the powerful running game and was never better than in the District 3 Class 3 championship game, when he rumbled for 170 yards as the Spartans beat Middletown for the second straight season in the final.
It was Wyomissing’s ninth district title, all under Bob Wolfrum, who won his 322nd game, 11th-most in state history and second among active coaches.
Gov. Mifflin (8-1) was even more dominant on the way to its first district championship.
The Mustangs gave a glimpse of things to come by wrecking Wilson 48-7 in the season opener and never broke stride.
The 48 points turned out to be their lowest output until running into eventual state champ Pine-Richland in the state semifinals; even the Rams couldn’t slow them down.
In what was essentially the de facto state championship game, the Mustangs raced to leads of 21-0 and 41-19 and were up 44-41 with three minutes left before giving up a late score and falling 48-44.
Even with that, Mifflin shattered the Berks scoring record by averaging 54.5 points — more than a touchdown greater than Berks Catholic’s 45.3 in 2017.
The Mustangs had weapons everywhere but rarely needed to look past their backfield combo of tailback Nick Singleton and fullback Brandon Strausser.
Singleton scored 24 TDs and Strausser 15 (in eight games) to become the first teammates in modern history to finish 1-2 in Berks in scoring.
Strausser did his damage inside and averaged 9.0 yards per carry. Singleton was a threat anywhere on the field and averaged 12.5 yards per carry, yet another program record.
Singleton, the Berks 1 Offensive Back of the Year, rushed for 1,303 yards and became the first to lead Berks in rushing as a freshman, sophomore and junior. He’s rushed for 4,267 career yards and is on the verge of topping Iggy Reynoso’s county record (4,778).
Wilson (6-1) rebounded from its Week 1 loss and didn’t lose again in earning its first outright Section 1 title since 2016. The Bulldogs did it the hard way, too, playing at Manheim Township in Week 2 without three key starters, including quarterback Kaleb Brown. They played courageously to pull out a 31-28 win and went on to record their 45th consecutive winning season, the longest streak in the state.
Brown finished in a big way, rushing for 243 yards in his final game — a Wilson record for quarterbacks.
The Bulldogs were squeezed out of the trimmed-down District 3 playoff field, missing the postseason for the first time in head coach Doug Dahms’ 15 seasons.
Exeter (6-2) and Berks Catholic (53), district playoff staples, also were on the outside looking in. With the fields in the top classes reduced to four teams, one loss was one too many. Only unbeaten teams qualified in Class 6A, 5A and 4A — and a few unbeatens didn’t make it, either.
Exeter was boxed out of the playoffs for the first time in 10 years. Berks Catholic missed the postseason for the first time since its inaugural season in 2010.
Like Wyomissing and Mifflin, Conrad Weiser (6-1), in its first season in Section 2, went unchallenged during the regular season and won every game by three TDs or more.
Logan Klitsch emerged as a dangerous dual-threat quarterback and led Berks in passing yards and TDs passes. The Berks 2 Offensive Back of the Year nearly led the Scouts to an impossible comeback in the District 3 Class 4A semifinals when they rallied from 33 points down to make a game of it before falling to Lampeter-Strasburg.
Not all the news was good. Muhlenberg (0-7) continued to struggle and finished with back-toback winless records for the first time in program history.
Three of the league’s most-respected coaches resigned following the season.
Jeff Chillot left Schuylkill Valley after 12 seasons, the longest tenure in program history. Chuck Kutz left Hamburg after five seasons and went out with a Frost Bowl victory. Dean Owens left the cupboard well stocked at Twin Valley following his five-year stint. Dominic Caruso, one of several key juniors, rushed for a Berks season-high 358 yards in the season-ending win over Fleetwood.
Perhaps the most-treasured victory came in Kutztown’s season finale when it snapped a 35-game losing streak and beat Shenandoah Valley 36-0.
Larry Chester may have been the only coach happy to be wearing a mask; it helped cover his tears of joy after the Cougars won for the first time in four seasons.
“I was overtaken with emotion,” Chester admitted. “It’s been a journey.”