Mark Schmidt isn’t prone to sentiment, but there’s no mistaking the pride in the veteran coach’s voice when he talks about this year’s team and its remarkable response to adversity.
“For everything that has happened, something else has to happen,” the Neshaminy coach said. “We have been fortunate that most of it has been positive, and we want to keep it that way.”
It didn’t look as though ‘positive’ would be part of the Redskins’ vocabulary when senior captain Marco Dapkey was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in June. Then the Redskins lost long-time assistant coach Joe ‘Mustang’ Foster just before the start of preseason.
If that wasn’t enough, senior lineman Nick DiDonato suffered a concussion in late September and was sidelined until last week’s playoff game against Upper Dublin.
That unexpected chain of events could have broken the Redskins. Instead, it has brought them together.
“We lost Marco, and that made our team bond so much greater,” senior Dwight Williams said. “Then a week before camp, we lost one of our coaches, and that pulled us together even more.
“When Nick was out, we played for him because we knew if we didn’t make the playoffs he would probably never play football again.”
“It definitely made us more of a team,” senior Charlie Marterella said. “The whole Marco situation just brought everyone tighter and made us work harder.
“We looked at everything that happened in a positive way that it could bring us closer together. We could become a good team and just go from there. We realized we had to do it together if we wanted to get where we wanted to go.”
“We were already close,” senior Corey Majors added. “Everything that happened brought us even closer and also gave us a bit of motivation to want to do everything for them on top of everything we had planned on doing. It pretty much just added fuel really.”
Fueled by that emotion, the Redskins rolled to a 9-1 regular season record and earned a share of the National Conference crown. They notched a huge win over Upper Dublin in last week’s opening round of the District One Class AAAA playoffs and have a date with Abington at home in Friday night’s second round.
Not bad for a team that suffered one setback after another.
“I thought we had talent even though we had a couple of things happen to us, but we made a team pledge we weren’t going to make excuses,” Schmidt said. “We were just going to go out there and do the best we can with what we have.
“Fortunately, our guys stepped up as a group and did a marvelous job.”
The addition of assistant coaches Erik Pedersen and Joe Crostarosa to the staff brought new energy to the program, and several promising underclassmen stepped in to fill the holes created in the absence of Dapkey and DiDonato. Freshman Denny Lord stepped into Dapkey’s linebacker spot, and sophomore Alex McKenzie filled in for DiDonato.
“Nick is a great lineman, probably the best on our team, and Alex did a great job of filling in for him when he wasn’t there,” senior Shane Quinn said. “Denny Lord has been filling in for Marco, and he’s played terrific and definitely done a great job.
“We expected them to step up because of the way they have been working. They’re always working, and it’s just their time to go out and show what they can do.”
Talk to any of the players, and they point to the team’s camaraderie as a key to their success.
“That’s probably the number one thing,” Quinn said. “We’re like a family. Some of us have been playing football together since we were seven, and all of us have been working hard together since ninth grade.
“Everybody working together – that’s basically what you want. You want 11 guys working as one for that common goal.”
“We’re together on the field, and we’re together off the field,” Williams added. “We’re all like brothers.
“We’re with each other 90 percent of the time. There’s a joke in school that you never see the football players without each other. We’re always together. We are all honestly friends. We’re a family.”
The Redskins have been getting contributions from everyone, and in no area has their teamwork been more evident than on offense where they have an arsenal of weapons.
Marterella, the field general at QB, has thrown for 1,558 yards and 16 touchdowns. His favorite targets – Dwight Williams and Justin Andrews – have combined for over a thousand yards. Williams leads the way with 34 catches for 647 yards, which translates into a gaudy 19.6 yards per catch. He has seven touchdowns. Bobby Marterella also has over 100 yards receiving.
“Everyone has come along,” Marterella said. “Justin Andrews is only a sophomore, and he’s been doing a great job on offense.
“I knew they were players, but they have helped me out a lot by making plays all year.”
The Redskins have a three-pronged ground attack with Sean Ulmer (984 yards and 10 touchdowns), Anthony Woodroffe (823 yards and 11 touchdowns) and Majors (432 yards and seven TDs) all getting the job done.
“We have a team thing going on here,” Schmidt said. “Everybody is really buying into it, and it’s really kind of nice that way.”
The only bump in the road for the Redskins this season was a loss 28-21 loss to Council Rock South, but the team managed to turn even that loss into something positive.
“It made us look at ourselves as a team and just realize that we have to get better,” Marterella said. “It’s not bad – we ended up sharing the league title, so it definitely made us a better team.”
“We have become more a team since that game, relying on each other,” Quinn added. “During that game, if something went wrong, we might have tried to make the big play ourselves instead of doing assignment football, which is what we’re taught to do.
“After that, we really learned how to trust each other and just do our assignments. If we do ours, the next person will do theirs and everything will get done.”
That loss also taught the Redskins the importance of composure.
“We needed to learn to keep our composure when things don’t go our way,” Majors said. “We needed to learn how to settle down and just stick to what we know and what we do best and that’s play team football.
“So that’s exactly what we’ve been focusing on the rest of the season.”
The Redskins have won four straight since that loss to Rock South with a rematch against Abington their next challenge. They defeated the Ghosts 28-10 in late September.
“I know they definitely got better, and we definitely got better,” Majors said. “It’s going to be an intense game just like it was earlier in the season.”
“It’s exciting to get to play them again,” Marterella said. “They’ve gotten a lot better offensively and defensively, so we have to come ready to play.
“The playoffs are the most fun. I’ve been looking forward to this my whole life. This is what it’s all about.”
Kickoff on Friday night is at 7 p.m., and according to Quinn, it doesn’t get much better than playoff football at Heartbreak Ridge.
“The stands are always packed for the playoff games,” he said. “It’s awesome.
“We know Abington is a great team. They have only gotten better since we played them the last time. We’re just really excited to get out there and play a good football game against a good football team in front of our home crowd. We’re definitely excited.”
*Statistics included in this article are provided courtesy of the Intelligencer/Bucks County Courier Times.
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