16. 2008 Hollidaysburg
The Scoop-The 2008 season for the Hollidaysburg Golden Tigers started with a loss, and ended with a loss. The 10 game winning streak in between is the impressive part. The other impressive part is the teams that beat them. They opened the season with a 37-0 loss to an incredibly strong State College team that was 12-1 themselves, and fell victims to District Four power Selinsgrove in the state playoffs. Hollidaysburg's offense started with the play of the quarterback Brandyn Ott. The senior led his team in rushing to go along with his 1100 yard season through the air. His best game was perhaps the District Championship game against Johnstown. Ott completed 11-13 passes for a score and ran 127 yards and three scores to secure the school's second championship in three seasons. The offense also relied heavily on a sophomore, as Luke Rhodes rushed for ten scores. The offense's go to player was perhaps, Justin Gildea, as he accounted for 17 touchdowns and ran and caught the ball as a versatile weapon for the Golden Tigers. The Hollidaysburg team comes in as the first AAA school on the list as it is hard because they do not play many common opponents like the A and AA teams do. This team's schedule featured plenty of AAAA schools and non District Six teams. The Tigers held their own, in fact were flat out dominant at times.
The Stars-Justin Gildea went on to earn Second Team All State honors for his play at defense back in 2008. He went on to play for Temple in the MAC and has done very well for himself. He started every game in 2011 and will be a key player in 2012. Luke Rhodes was just a sophomore on this team but played a strong role for the team. Rhodes went on to Second Team All State honors himself and is continuing his football career at William & Mary. Ryan McGrath opted to walk-on to play Tackle at Ohio University.
The Argument-The 2008 Hollidaysburg team had the stars to back up this ranking. They had the record, too. Not many people would count on this team to be on here, but I do not see how they would not make it. Ott played tremendous at Quarterback, Rhodes and Gildea were huge on both offense and defense. They may not have played a District Six schedule for the most part, but they defeated Indian Valley,Bellefonte,Central Mountain, and Johnstown with relative ease. This team would have been fun to see play some more local teams.
No comments:
Post a Comment