“It’s not an upset if you believe.”
Council Rock North’s players repeated that phrase over and over last week, and on Thursday night, the Indians went out and stunned everyone but themselves when they defeated heavily favored Neshaminy 17-14.
“We all bought in this whole week,” senior captain A.J. Garboski said. “We worked hard, and we believed we were going to beat this team.
“From the first kick to the last kick, we believed we were going to win that game, and that’s what it came down to. We’ve got a lot of big hearts on that team. We don’t give up. Even in tough times and adversity, even with injuries, we just don’t give up.”
Heading into Thursday night’s game against Neshaminy, the Indians were just six days removed from a 27-0 loss to Abington, and it was gut check time.
“We knew against Abington our defense played pretty well,” senior captain Steve Sroba said. “We only gave up 14 points on defense, so we knew our defense was going to do well, and we knew if our offense could pick up a little bit that we’d be fine.
“We told everyone that all we have to do was believe. We knew if we believed we could do it because we knew our defense was good enough. I thought we came in with a different mindset to this game.”
Things didn’t look promising when the Redskins marched down the field for a touchdown on their opening drive of the game, but Ferguson Amo’s 65-yard kickoff return and a 27-yard pass completion from Trevor Guzy to Bill McAlister set the stage for a four-yard TD pass to Garboski that knotted the score 7-7.
“They rolled right over our defense on their opening drive, but we came right back with a score, and that was a huge thing because in a lot of our games – on our first drive, our offense shuts down, and that kind of sets the tone for the rest of the game,” Sroba said. “But in this one, on our first drive, we came right back and tied it up. That’s when we all thought we were definitely in this one.”
An interception by CR North linebacker Pat Krimm set up a 27-yard field goal by Max Pedinoff that put the Indians on top 10-7 late in the first quarter. The Indians’ defense kept the Redskins off the scoreboard until one minute remained in regulation.
“They key to this game and the key that will help us win any game is our defense,” Garboski said. “I truly believe our defense is one of the best in the league.
“We have a minimum goal of (forcing) three turnovers a game, and we go after it. If we don’t get it, we’re hard on ourselves. We have a really good defense, and we take pride in what we do. If our offense puts points on the board like it did on Thursday night, then I think we can win a lot of games.”
The Redskins’ – thanks to a touchdown pass from Joe Bianchino to Bobby Marterella – went on top 14-10 with a minute remaining in regulation. The Indians weren’t finished yet, and Guzy found McAlister – who finished the night with seven catches for 125 yards – for two huge completions. The senior wide receiver took the second one 47 yards for a touchdown that put the Indians on top 17-14 after Pedinoff’s extra point with 34.6 seconds remaining.
“That play was for anyone who was open,” McAlister said of his game-winning TD catch. “If the safety jumps me, AJ Nielsen would have been wide open in the end zone, but the safety was all over him. I came across the middle, and no one was on me.
“I’m not one of the faster types. I just tried to run as fast as I can without getting caught to get to the end zone. I knew I had one of my teammates right behind me to block anyone that was fast enough to come get me. I’m pretty slow, so I don’t know how I got there.”
The high drama was hardly over as the Redskins put themselves in a position to try a field goal that fell just short, setting off a giddy celebration as Rock North’s student body stormed the field.
“It was probably one of the best experiences of my life having the student body rush the field, making a huge pile-on of our coaches – all of the coaches were in it, the players, the student body,” Garboski said. “It was an unbelievable experience I will never forget.”
“That was the most unbelievable game I was ever in,” Sroba said. “It was the most unbelievable feeling I have ever felt. The fans stormed the field, and we were all just running around hugging each other.
“The coaches – everyone got emotional. It’s the best game I’ve ever been involved in. We might not ever have another win like that. No one expected it besides us. We were the only ones who thought we could win that game.”
This was – according to McAlister – Rock North’s version of the Super Bowl.
“We take every week like it’s our Super Bowl,” he said. “Winning that game was like winning the Super Bowl for us. Everyone was crazy happy.
“The locker room sounded like an earthquake. It was great. That’s why you go through those hard weeks in the summer – the two-a-days. It’s just for those game nights and just to have the feeling like that at the end of the game.”
To put Thursday’s win in perspective, consider the fact that the Indians are coming off a 1-9 season that saw them fall to the Redskins 35-8. Throw in the fact that they were 2-3 this season after suffering not only a lopsided loss to Abington but also a 42-6 beating at the hands of Central Bucks South, and it’s easy to understand why emotions ran high after Thursday’s dramatic win over a perennial SOL powerhouse Redskin squad.
“I couldn’t even talk to them after the game,” coach Adam Collachi said. “It was that emotional. If there’s anything above cloud nine, they were there.
“They’re a great group of kids. We never talk about deserving something – you have to go out and earn it, but if any group of boys deserves to feel like that, it’s this group.”
According to Sroba, the players used last year as motivation.
“It was so hard with all the injuries and everything,” he said. “We kept losing, and in school, people would tell us how terrible we were, and we had nothing to back ourselves up with because we didn’t have any wins.
“So this year coming in, we kind of used that as motivation. We didn’t want it to be like that anymore, and having that blowout loss to Abington, people started saying stuff again – you guys are terrible, you guys will never win any games. Then to come back with this huge win is awesome because now everyone believes we’re a good team – all the students, all the teachers.”
“Those kids saying that we suck – they’re not the ones on the field,” McAlister added. “They’re the ones going home and playing video games all day. Not one of those kids could do what we do. I don’t really pay attention to those people.”
The players insist they never lost faith that their team could turn things around.
“We’ve all been buddies since seventh grade, we’ve all been on the same football team,” McAlister said. “A bunch of the seniors stepped up this year, and we said, ‘Tradition starts now.’ We weren’t messing around.”
“We knew we were capable of being a great team and having a great season,” Garboski said. “Last season was just very tough with the injuries and everything.
“We knew this year was going to be different. If things went wrong this season, we were always going to come back.
“We always had in our mind beating Neshaminy, beating Pennsbury and beating South. We never lost faith. We had a goal, and we accomplished one of those goals.”
Collachi called Thursday’s win a signature win.
“We came together as a coaching staff and said we needed a real signature win,” the Indians’ coach said. “Who do you look at? You look to beat an Abington, you look to beat a Neshaminy, you look to beat a Pennsbury and recently you look to beat CR South.
“That’s what we did, and it was special.”
Thursday’s win effectively silenced the critics who questioned Collachi and the direction his program was heading, but the Indians’ coach wasn’t concerned about any of that.
“It’s about the kids, and our kids deserve better,” the Indians’ coach said. “They have such integrity, they have such character. They could have packed it in after things went bad against CB South and then losing a heartbreaker to Hatboro, but they just don’t give up, and they just believe in everything we tell them. They’re the most coachable group of kids I’ve ever been around.”
A fired-up Indian squad will take on Truman this weekend.
“We’re 3-3 right now,” McAlister said. “If we can win three of our next four games, that will be amazing for us. If we can get four out of four, that will be something else.
“We just need to keep doing what we’re doing on offense because it’s actually working, and our defense is phenomenal.”
No one on Rock North’s side is making any brash predications, but everyone believes the program is heading in the right direction.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” Collachi said. “But in hindsight when I look back, this could be the building block of something really special to this program. I think one day we’ll realize how it set this program in motion.”
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