Eagles just miss out on title during record-setting season

It’s often said that people rarely choose the most influential books in their lives.

Instead, those books choose them, and they’re impactful because the books speak to a part of the reader.

Such a book found its way to Tyrone coach John Franco last year, and it couldn’t have been more timely, considering the kind of season he was about to embark upon in 2024 with the Golden Eagles.

The book, The Obstacle is the Way, is a modern application of the philosophy of stoicism – the art of enduring challenges with strength and focusing only on what one can control. Franco got the book as a gift from his youngest son Stevie, and, he said, it was something he kept on his desk looked at every day.

“Our season was like that,” he said. “We had a lot of obstacles early.”

Those obstacles, almost all related to personnel and injury issues, were the defining characteristic of Tyrone’s first six games, and the result was a 2-4 record. But the team never allowed those games to define their season.

Like Sisyphus, perhaps the most revered stoic of them all, the Eagles kept pushing that rock up the hill, battling for five straight weeks to win games and earn a seeding to their benefit in the District 6 3A playoffs.

And while the season ended with a loss in the District championship game to Penn Cambria, Tyrone’s 5-1 run down the stretch and 7-5 overall record became a remarkable testament to the team’s talent and resilience.

Along the way, Tyrone’s offense established individual and team records that at one time seemed unreachable.

None of that would have seemed possible on September 28, less than 24 hours removed from the fog of a 50-37 loss to Bishop Guilfoyle. By then the team was sputtering, and even a .500 season seemed like a reach.

But just when the season was spinning out of control, something happened. Veterans began playing like veterans, and new faces emerged to fill in gaps left by injury. Backups became starters, coaches adjusted game plans on the fly, and top players battled ailments to make their way back into the starting lineup.

And the Golden Eagles went on a run.

Tyrone’s meteoric improvement and 5-game spring to the championship game could be dissected from any number of angles, but four key ones stand out.

Quarterback Play

When you look at the way his season ended, who wouldn’t want to be Ashton Walk?

A 3,000-yard season. Four-year starter. Records galore.

But go back to September 27, after Walk threw two interceptions leading to touchdowns in Tyrone’s 13-point loss to the Marauders, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would have traded places with the senior signal-caller.

Walk had the weight of the team on his shoulders, and through the first half of the season, he played as through he needed to win the game with every pass.

Over the first six games, Walk threw 10 interceptions. It came to a head in Week 5 in the Backyard Brawl against Bellwood-Antis when – down his top two receivers – Walk was picked off four times in a 35-28 loss that humbled a team already struggling to find its footing.

Then came the Guilfoyle game, when an interception on Tyrone’s first possession set up one Marauder score and a late pick-6 by Nick McCloskey dashed any hopes of a comeback.

But Walk never faltered, and he never lost the gunslinger mentality that had gotten him to the top of Tyrone’s passing record books in the first place. However, what he did do was what the stoics do – he controlled what he could control and he trusted to process. He began spreading the ball around and using all of his receivers. He looked to checkdowns when deep receivers were covered. Perhaps most importantly, he began recognizing when to bail on a play, opting instead to use his sizeable frame and athleticism to run for tough yards or to simply scramble and throw the ball away.

“That was the big thing for him the rest of the year. He went back to – instead of trying to go deep every play – just trying to read his progressions and use his checkdowns,” Franco said. “When that happened, it opened everybody else up.”

Over the next five weeks, Walk’s improvement helped stabilize the offense and set the table for an run that may never be duplicated. He would complete 82 of of 110 passes for 1,372 yards and 15 touchdowns, including three consecutive games with more than 300 yards passing.

No quarterback at Tyrone had ever approached those numbers. To put them in perspective, Leonard Wilson in 2005 and Matt Sharer in 1997 each led offenses widely regarded among the best ever produced at Tyrone, and neither did in one season what Walk did during that five-game stretch to get into the District finals. For further emphasis, Walk’s four 300-yard passing games in 2024 gave him five for his career, three more than all other 300-yard passing games in Tyrone history combined.

Walk also ran for 115 yards and five touchdowns over that period, giving Tyrone’s offense one more weapon in a unit already stacked to the gills when it was healthy.

To say Walk was working with a loaded phalanx of receivers ready and able to make plays would be an understatement. The addition of Trent Adams, who transferred to Tyrone this year from Bishop Guilfoyle, was a game-changer, and it would be an enormous oversight to downplay his impact on the production of the Eagles’ offense. Adams led the team with 867 yards on 47 receptions and tied the school record for touchdown receptions in a season with 15, all while missing all or parts of four game with a shoulder injury.

Adams went over 100 receiving yards five times and stretched the field with speed to burn. Perhaps more importantly, his presence freed other capable pass-catchers, none more so than junior Eli Woomer, who led the Golden Eagles with 53 receptions. He totaled 811 receiving yards and scored 6 touchdowns, averaging more than 15 yards per catch.

Senior Gayge Miller emerged as a third option that could have been No. 1 on most teams. With 23 receptions for 377 yards, he averaged 16.4 yards per reception.

If by some chance all of those receivers were covered, there was Seth Hoover out of the backfield, and he finished fourth on the team in receiving yardage with 294 yards on 28 receptions.

In all, eight receivers had double-digit receptions, eight had at least 100 receiving yards, and seven averaged more than 10 yards per catch.

By season’s end, Walk had completed 211 of 325 passes for 3,014 yards, 30 touchdowns, and 14 interceptions.

He became the first quarterback at Tyrone to eclipse 2,000 yards in a single season twice, and he established not only a new career passing yardage mark (8,074), but a new mark for total career yards (8,548), breaking a 24-year old record set by Jesse Jones from 1997-2000.

Having started and put up massive numbers since his freshman season, many of those records were already in the bag by the middle of the season, and it would have been easy for Walk to call it a career and ride off with every record in the book. But he didn’t. Instead, he found another level and ended his senior season playing the best football of his career, and that was a turning point for the Eagles.

Finding a running game

Seth Hoover never imagined his senior season would start the way it did.

In his first game as Tyrone’s feature back, Hoover fumbled twice against Clearfield and put the ball on the ground once more a week later against Johnstown.

But for the stoic, setbacks are only the exposition of a story. The real plot comes in how one responds.

Hoover answered his early-season mistakes by building momentum week after week before growing into one of the top all-around backs at Tyrone in the last decade.

With 1,194 yards on 192 carries, Hoover not only became the second back to run for 1,000 yards in as many seasons, but he established a unique superlative that – while it may not be a record – was something that had never been accomplished before at Tyrone. He and his father Scott, a former Golden Eagle standout who played his last season in 1988, became the first father-son duo to rush for 1,000 yards.

Hoover’s emergence was critical for Tyrone because it meant that now teams had to respect a second aspect of the Golden Eagles’ offense aside from Walk and the passing game, and when he began his march towards 1,000 yards somewhere around Week 4, he became much more than just a complimentary player.

It’s amazing Seth had a 1,200-yard season when we’re using the running game to offset our heavy emphasis on the pass.

Coach Franco

“It’s amazing Seth had a 1,200-yard season when we’re using the running game to offset our heavy emphasis on the pass,” Franco said. “Things came together, and I’m amazed we were able to accomplish what we did.”

Hoover’s value was first fully utilized in an overtime victory over Bald Eagle Area in Week 4, where he ran for 95 yards, caught 4 passes for 23 yards, and ran for the game-winning touchdown in the extra frame to seal the victory. That performance began a string of success that saw produce 100 yards in offense five times over the final eight weeks of the season.

His best game came in the District semifinals against Forest Hills, where a Rangers defense loaded to stop the pass all but dared the Eagles to run the football. Hoover took them up on the challenge and carried 23 times for 249 yards and 4 touchdowns. It was the most a Tyrone back had run for in a single game since Gary Weaver went for 236 against Huntingdon in a playoff game in 2015.

“They put everybody in pass defense and said we’re going to force them to run the ball,” said Franco. “Okay, if you want to put everybody back in pass defense, we’ll give it to Seth, and he can rush for 250 yards.”

While there were other monster games, like his 196-yard outburst against Penns Valley, Hoover’s most complete game, where his skills as a pass-catcher and runner were most on display, was in Tyrone’s 27-26 win at Chestnut Ridge in Week 10, a victory that pushed the Eagles into the No. 3 seed in the playoffs. In that one, Hoover ran for 92 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries and caught 6 passes for 68 yards, extending drives on screens and leaks out of the backfield when Walk was in trouble.

After Brady Ronan graduated in the spring of 2024, the Eagles needed Hoover to step up and become a No. 1 back, but they may not have expected the level of results they got. He made the running game a threat, and that in turn opened up the rest of the offense to put up numbers few at Tyrone have ever reached.

Patching the offensive line

Of course, none of the feats achieved by Walk or Hoover could have been accomplished had not Tyrone’s undersized and injured offensive line come together as well as it did.

For Franco, there were probably times when just getting five healthy bodies in three-point stances may have seemed like a feat in itself. Before the season had even began, the Eagles lost their top returning lineman, junior John Stanton, to a knee injury, and by Week 2 they were playing without their second-best returner in junior Owen Oakes, who dislocated his ankle against Greater Johnstown.

While there were times when it appeared Stanton may have been on the road to a return this season, he never did make it back, but Oakes found his way back onto the field by the Huntingdon game in Week 7. They were players who were sorely missed not only for their experience but because they gave the Eagles legitimate size, something the line on both sides of the football was sorely lacking.

The stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelias said men should accept the things to which fate binds them, and though they may have done so grudgingly, Franco and the Eagles coaches accepted the injuries and coached up those players who could help. Tyrone found a way, at least on offense, to work around injuries and weight disparities to piece together a line that could protect Walk and give him the time he needed to make throws while creating just enough space for Hoover to pop through creases and average 6.2 yards per carry (As a whole, the Eagles gained 5.4 yards per rush).

The group moved players in and out on an almost weekly basis. It included seniors like Cian Hockenberry and Austin Lucas, who shifted to the line this season after Stanton was injured, as well as Ian Gibbons, who began starting on the offensive line mid-season. There was also a strong impact created by underclassmen, like juniors Lucas Bonsell, Alex Starr, Marshall Martin, and Kaden Ansman. In fact Ansman, who was a backup to begin the season until Oake’s injury made him the No. 1 center, played well enough to be named an LHAC All-East section honorable mention.

“He really came on,” Franco said of Ansman. “He turned himself around and really played well. I was really proud of him. Ian turned into a pretty good ball player until he came down with pneumonia. Austin Lucas epitomizes our team – a running back who never played lineman in his life. He’s 5-8, 5-9, 180 pounds soaking wet, and he just gave everything. We were undersized guys who may not have been the most talented, but they played their hearts out and gave us an opportunity to have a pretty good year.”

Midway through the season, Ashton Emigh, who began the season as the team’s No. 2 running back, moved to the tight end/H-back position, making the line even stronger while at the same time providing Walk with one more target in the short passing game (He finished the season with 10 catches for 117 yards).

The unit figured things out incrementally week by week. The first positive sign was when Walk’s sack numbers began to decline by Week 4. Soon after, he was getting time enough to make decisions in the pocket. Later, Hoover was getting enough space to make it to the second level and utilize his speed.

By the time the playoffs rolled around, the line was playing well enough that the offense could pick its poison to run and pass with equal efficiency.

What began as a sticking point slowly matured into a strength, and the upside is many of those players will return next season.

Health

If there was one single factor that influenced the direction of Tyrone’s season, it was keeping top players on the field and out of the office of trainer Dave Bokulich.

From games 1 through 5, the Eagles played with an intact set of skill players precisely one time. That was 35-28 victory over Bald Eagle Area in overtime, a game in which the Eagles produced 333 yards of total offense. That wouldn’t happen again for another two weeks, but in the games where Tyrone was operating with all of its skill players on the field for an entire game the Eagles were 6-2, with the two losses coming to Guilfoyle and Penn Cambria.

All the way back in August, Franco remarked that Tyrone’s skill players could compete with anyone in Pennsylvania, and that wasn’t hyperbole. With all of the top offensive playmakers on the field, from Walk to Hoover to Adams and Woomer, Tyrone averaged 420 yards per game.

The biggest eye-opener as to the Eagles’ offensive potential when everyone was healthy came in Week 6, one week off of Tyrone’s loss to B-A in the Backyard Brawl – a game Tyrone played without Woomer, who was suspended for disciplinary reasons, or Adams, who was injured on the Eagles’ second series of the game. Against Bishop Guilfoyle, Tyrone produced 425 yards in total offense and scored 37 points, the most allowed by the Marauders during a 15-1 season that ended with a PIAA title. While the production came in a loss, it opened the gates for Tyrone, which kept its skill players healthy the rest of the way.

The Eagles went on to generate the fifth-best season in terms of total yards in school history, despite playing far fewer games than those ahead of it, all of which played in regional playoff games. They had the best passing offense in school history and scored the seventh most points.

That senor class just came together and really formed a team that was very close.

Coach Franco

With everyone in the lineup, Tyrone also laid claim to at least a piece of one of the oldest records on the books at Tyrone when, on October 18, the Eagles scored 82 points against Penns Valley in a blowout to close out play in the LHAC East section. They totaled a season-high 628 yards of total offense and scored 9 offensive touchdowns to tie a record that had been established in 1923. Tytus Novak, who had just joined the team two weeks prior to fill in for his injured brother, kicker Dante Novak, kicked 10 PATs, another school record.

In Weeks 1 through 5, Tyrone was good but underachieving on offense, averaging 25 points per game. With everyone back, the Eagles averaged 48 per game from Weeks 6 through 11.

Had the Eagles packed it in after a middling first half, things could have gone south in a hurry. They had certainly played a top-heavy schedule with lots of heavy hitters on the front end, but the back side was no picnic either. Tyrone just played exceptionally well.

The reason: they embraced the obstacles. Be they obstacles of injury, size, bad calls, or tough match ups, the Eagles, in the fashion of true stoics, locked in on what they could control and controlled it as well as any team in the last decade.

And while the season ended with a loss, Franco saw growth, and credited his seniors.

“That senor class just came together and really formed a team that was very close,” he said, “that pushed each other and helped each other. That senior class was a good role model for what you have to do to be successful in a high school football season.”