Coming into 2024, there was an expectation in Tyrone that, with Ashton Walk entering his fourth season as the Eagles’ starter at quarterback, records were going to fall.
However, few foresaw the scale on which Tyrone’s record book would be revamped.
Beyond the marks established by Walk – and of those there were many – the Eagles set a slew of team and individual records during a 7-5 season that ended last week with a loss in the District 6 3A championship game to Penn Cambria.
And they all centered around Tyrone’s high-powered offense, which averaged 35 points per game and spent most of the final six weeks of the season as the hottest unit in the Laurel Highlands.
For Walk, while the records he set were much anticipated, the degree to which he exceeded those milestones is noteworthy. Perhaps the biggest was Tyrone’s all-time passing yardage record, which he surpassed by nearly 2,000 yards. The old record was set by Steve Franco, who started for the Golden Eagles from 2009-2011 and in that time passed for 6,100 yards. Walk went beyond that mark by the third game of the season and went on to throw for 8,074 yards. He also bettered Franco’s record for career touchdown passes, ending his career with 86, 22 more than Franco.
Perhaps more impressive were the single-season records Walk surpassed because he was able to go beyond those milestones in far fewer games than it took Franco. In 2011, the Golden Eagles went 14-2 and played in the PIAA championship, giving him four more games than Walk had in 2024, and yet Walk still tied his record for single season touchdown passes (30) and exceeded his 2,598 passing yards by more than 400, becoming the first passer in Tyrone history to reach 3,000 yards in one season (he finished with 3,014).
Walk tied Franco’s record for single season touchdown passes (30) and exceeded his 2,598 passing yards by more than 400, becoming the first passer in Tyrone history to reach 3,000 yards in one season.
In total, Walk carved up the record book, setting eight new records, including single season and career completions as well as single season and career passing attempts. While he had established the single game passing yardage record a season ago as a junior with 360 yards against Penns Valley, he went over 300 yards passing four times in 2024, which is a total only two other passers at Tyrone had ever reached, and each of them (Erik Wagner in 2012 and Drew Hunter in 2015) did it only once.
Tyrone’s receivers benefitted from the accuracy of Walk, who completed 211 of his 325 passes, and etched their name into the record book, as well. While Eli Woomer finished second on the team in receiving yards to Trent Adams, he still managed to lead the team in receptions with 53 (fifth-best all time for a season) for 811 yards, allowing him to become the ninth Golden Eagle receiver to achieve more than 1,000 receiving yards for his career. Only a junior, Woomer now has 1,199 yards through the air, good enough for seventh place on the all-time list.
Meanwhile, Adams, who transferred to Tyrone from Bishop Guilfoyle in 2024, nearly reached 1,000 yards in the one season he had with the Golden Eagles, and almost certainly would have gotten that amount had he been healthy in the early part of the season. A shoulder injury sidelined Adams for the second half of the season opener against Clearfield, kept him out of the next two games, and limited him to less than one complete series against Bellwood-Antis. Still, Adams finished with 867 yards, good enough for the seventh-best single season of all time, and his 14 touchdown receptions were the second best for a season, trailing only Nick Patton, who had 15 in 2011.
Eli Woomer had 53 receptions for 811 yards in 2024 and became the ninth receiver at Tyrone to go over 1,000 receiving yards for his career.
Adams also cracked the top 10 in single game receiving yards with 165 against Central Cambria, good enough for seventh.
If the passing numbers were expected, what wasn’t expected, at least after the first three weeks of the season, was the success Tyrone achieved with its running game. At that point, the Eagles had stumbled running the football in big games, totaling just 60 against Clearfield and 51 against Central, but the Eagles’ offensive line, despite injuries and a general lack of size, figured things out, paving the way for Seth Hoover to register a 1,000-yard season. After recording four 100-yard games, including a season-high 249 in the District 6 semifinals against Forest Hills, Hoover finished with 1,194 yards on 192 carries, becoming the twenty-third back at Tyrone to reach 1,000 yards in a season.
Hoover’s big numbers provided balance to Tyrone’s offense and helped the Eagles pump out the fifth best season in terms of total offense with 4,624 yards. And never was that balance more apparent than in Week 9 against Penns Valley, when Tyrone established a pair of records that could stand just as long, if not longer, than those posted by Walk.
On that night, Tyrone scored 12 times. Hoover ran for 196 yards, Walk threw for 350, and the Golden Eagles equaled a record that had stood for 101 years by scoring 82 points in a blowout over the Rams.
At the same time, unheralded sophomore Tytus Novak kicked his way into the record books with a night for the ages. Novak, a standout on the soccer team, had only joined the team a week earlier to fill the void left when his brother Dante, Tyrone’s full-time kicker, went down with an injury against Bishop Guilfoyle, so the game against Penns Valley was his first.
But Novak kicked like a seasoned veteran, booting 10 extra points to break the record for PAT kicks in a game set 25 years earlier by Scott Gummo and tied five years later by his brother Ben. Those two both had 8.
***
Every team begins the season shooting for a District 6 championship. Some of those hopes are more reasonable than others, but the fact is there can only be one from each classification.
Tyrone was one of those teams with legitimate title aspirations, and although those hopes were derailed by Penn Cambria in the championship game, they accomplished some remarkable things along the way.
Enough remarkable things, in fact, to ensure that – even with out a championship – teams and individuals from Tyrone will be chasing the Golden Eagles of 2024 for years to come.
ORANGE AND BLACK 