NEW BETHLEHEM, Pa. (EYT/D9) — Late Thursday evening, the Redbank Valley football team found out 10 players would not dress for a key road game at Port Allegany for undisclosed reasons.
(Redbank Valley coach Blane Gold huddles with a few of his players before a game against Union/A-C Valley earlier this season/photo by Madison McFarland.)
Bulldogs’ head coach Blane Gold and his staff had to reshuffle the deck and start a freshman quarterback.
Redbank Valley finally dented the scoreboard late when that freshman, Braylon Wagner, hit senior Tate Minich on a 90-yard touchdown pass to put the Bulldogs up 7-0. But they couldn’t hold on to the lead in an 8-7 loss, the first of the season.
“It was Braylon’s first ever start and he put us in a position to win a football game,” Gold said. “For a kid to find out essentially at eight o’clock on Thursday night after getting no reps in practice this week that he was going to start, couldn’t be more proud of his effort.”
Gold was also proud of the defense, which held Port Allegany (7-1) to less than 300 yards.
“We were without two defensive starters and we had guys step up and make plays,” Gold said. “The defense put us in position to win the game. The freshman quarterback put us in position to win the game. We made plays on special teams. We just scored one less point than they did.”
Port Allegany took the lead on a 2-point conversion late and then got a turnover to salt the game away.
It was a difficult 24-plus hours for the program.
“It was very, very emotionally draining,” Gold said. “I’m just proud of the effort they showed. The execution was below our standards. The execution was not the typical execution that we see from our football team, but I’m extremely proud of them for not blinking in the face of adversity.”
What that adversity is, no one at Redbank Valley can comment on.
Redbank Valley superintendent of schools Amy Rupp said early Friday afternoon in an email that, “The school district is unable to comment on any ongoing investigation.”
Gold said he is unsure if his team, which typically dresses 40 players, will be down to 30 beyond this week, and also could not comment about why the 10 players did not suit up.
He did say he was proud of the players who did during a tough road test against Port Allegany.
“This is probably one of the proudest I’ve been at the effort collectively as a football team,” Gold said. “With the self-inflicted wounds we had this week, we could have easily gone up there and lost by multiple scores. So proud that we had a chance to win it ‘till the very end.”
