Spartans 2001

Andrew Althouse | 2001-2003 | Offensive Tackle/Defensive Tackle | #77

In the second game of my varsity career, at home vs. Muhlenberg, we trailed 14-7 after the Muhls returned the second-half kickoff for a touchdown. It was brutally hot, so Coach Wolfrum decided to platoon some of the linemen, giving me an opportunity to show that I belonged on the varsity level. I relished every play of the second half as we stormed back to take a 31-14 lead and eventually win 31-22. Coach was confident enough to start me for the rest of the season, allowing our better senior lineman to focus on defense, and ultimately I experienced some tremendous games over the rest of my sophomore year. We went on to an undefeated regular season and the top seed in the district playoffs.

In the first round of the playoffs, we fell behind Juniata 28-14 at halftime. Though it was my first varsity playoff game, I wasn’t nervous, because I looked around in the locker room at halftime and saw the looks on the seniors’ faces. Nolan McCready, Jeff O’Hara, Brian Shoop, Jon Bailey…their faces all told me the same thing – there was no way we were losing that game. We fought throughout the second half and eventually Jeff O’Hara found Jon Bailey near the left pylon for a tying touchdown. Yet, it wasn’t over…we had to go through two interminable overtimes and stop a two-point conversion, but finally came out victorious, 35-34.

The next week’s title game vs. ELCO seemed like a piece of cake – everything went right from start to finish. Jeff intercepted the ELCO QB on our first drive, and then proceeded to hook up with Nolan McCready on one of the great plays in Wyomissing football for a touchdown that sent us on our way. Jon Hart crushed the ELCO defense all night and Billy Moser & Andy Taylor both broke some huge gains in the fourth quarter to break ELCO’s back, Moser eventually scored the final TD to put us ahead 28-0.