2020 Blue Mountain Football Preview and Interview with Head Coach Cory Mabry

2019 Wrap Up
Last year, the Blue Mountain Football team’s season was full of ups and downs. The Eagles started the 2019 football season with a 3-0 record, outsourcing their opponents by a combined score of 106-33. These three victories over Muhlenberg, Midd-West, and Hamburg had the Eagles prepped for the gauntlet ahead with Berks powerhouse Wyomissing and the Schuylkill League Division 1 schedule. After a Saturday loss to Wyomissing 35-14, the Eagles went back to back with losses with a crushing 49-14 defeat at the hands of eventual state semifinalist Tamaqua. The Eagles found hope with a 36-0 win over Lehighton before going into the last four weeks of the season. A crushing defeat at Jim Thorpe, giving up the game winning touchdown in the final minute, dropped the Eagles’ record to 4-3. A 39-7 loss to North Schuylkill and 42-0 loss to rival Pottsville dropped the Eagles’ record to 4-5. A final week win over next door neighbor Schuylkill Haven 19-17 set up a District XI 4A Quarterfinal date with Bethlehem Catholic. The Eagles put up a fight against the Golden Hawks, but bowed out with a 24-6 loss, ending the season with a 5-6 record.

Covid Effects on 2020 Schedule
After the Colonial League and Schuylkill League merged for the 2020 football season, the Eagles were preparing to face multiple brand new opponents from the Lehigh Valley this year. Unfortunately, Covid hit and recently the merger was pushed back until the 2021 season. The Eagles were to be in the Gold division of the merger, paired with other 4A and 5A opponents Bangor, Northwestern Lehigh, Saucon Valley, Southern Lehigh, Wilson, Lehighton, and Pottsville. The other three opponents on the Eagles schedule were familiar opponents; Jim Thorpe, North Schuylkill, and Schuylkill Haven. Less than two weeks ago though, the Schuylkill League assembled the new schedules for each team in a condensed eight game, league play schedule. The new schedule features home matchups with Jim Thorpe, Pine Grove, Tamaqua, and Mahanoy Area as well as away games with Schuylkill Haven, North Schuylkill, Lehighton, and Pottsville. The addition of Pine Grove and Mahanoy Area to the schedule brings back some old rivalries from the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Projected Lineup and Predictions
The Eagles were not hit as hard by graduation as many other of the division 1 schools were, as the Eagles return eight offensive and seven defensive starters. The voids that the Eagles need to fill the most are the departures of QB/ATH Jason Dean and OT/DT Joey Zelinsky. Both their skills and more importantly their leadership were vital to the Eagles in 2019. Taking over the reins at quarterback for the Eagles will be 6’3 225 Sophomore Jack Dean, the younger brother of Jason Dean. Dean beat out 5’10 155 Sophomore Derek Walasavage for the starting job, but Walasavage should still see snaps because of the two different dynamics they bring to the field. The Eagles have a slew of running backs to use this year, as Seniors Eman Parker (5’10 165), Carter Thompson (5’9 170), and Tanner Sidella (6’3 225) all saw carries last year. Junior Nick Johnson (6’1 200) should see some touches. The receiving core for the Eagles is definitely a strong suit, as Division 1 recruit and Buffalo commit Gavin Bartholomew (6’7 255) and fellow senior Bryce Hensley (6’5 180) are easy targets for the young quarterback Dean to look for. Senior Josh Gibson (6’1 195) should start at the slot for the Eagles as well. Walasavage will also see snaps at receiver when not at quarterback. The offensive line is a very veteran crew that returns four to six players with varsity experience. Logan Holland (6’3 240), Shane Martin (6’3 218), Toby Steele (5’10 240), Ross Bobbin (6’3 250), Jake Bobbin (6’3 250), and Evan Watral (6’2 277) should supply most of the reps along the offensive line for the year.

Defensively the Eagles should be very strong, as they return a bulk of their lineup. The front four will rotate many of the offensive linemen in and out, with Martin and Bartholomew anchoring both end positions. Dean, Sidella, and Toby Renninger (6’2 190) return as linebackers. The secondary is rounded out by Hensley and Parker at corners, and Gibson and Walasavage manning the safety positions. With many smaller schools on the schedule the Eagles’ size and strength is key to gaining yards.

Interview with Head Coach Cory Mabry

So overall what was the craziness of the covid virus’ effect on the season with the delayed start with workouts. How much have you had to change?

A lot. We started in a phase approach where we did just conditioning for two weeks of football with no balls then we moved into Some drills with footballs but no contact and then we got into normal practice with restrictions. So it was weird. That really put us behind the eight ball timewise compared to other years. We’re usually doing the stuff that you’re doing in June, usually in late July early August. We had to adjust how we practiced and we put a lot of special teams in over the summer. We did a little more conditioning and less lifting than we wanted to because of restrictions on the weight room.. So it’s all weird. Our kids were good at working out on their own at home stuff like that.

Offensively you lost your quarterback Jason Dean, but you have a strong sophomore class with two young players vying for the spot. Jack Dean and Derek Walasavage both are great candidates to bring back to replace Jason; both offer two, totally different styles of play with 6’3 and 5’10 and almost a hundred pounds in between them.

There they both bring different things to the table. Jack is a big strong cannon for an arm and Derek is really intelligent and is quicker with the reads and everything. So his feet are a little bit quicker. But Jack runs you over or Derek is really precise when he throws the football and gets where it needs to be.Jack will be our starter and he’ll get the majority of the reps. We’re going to move Derek most likely to a slot position again. He’s a very good receiver as well. Now where this role is from week to week. We don’t know we will always keep Derek as a potential quarterback.. Jack is a two way starter now, Jack plays inside linebacker and a quarterback and that is a very rare combination. So if he gets bumps and bruises or gets tired, whatever we have there and even Gavin Bartholomew is a quarterback by trade for the last couple years as well along with his tight end skills. So we have Gavin that we can possibly use. So it is Jack’s job right now. Jack is our man and he’s been looking really really good this week. We’ll see how things progress.

You bring back both a 6’5 Bryce Hensley and a 6’7 Gavin Bartholomew and Josh Gibson at slot.There’s plenty of receivers for Jack to look for. He got into a good situation with his receiving corps.

Absolutely. I think all he has to do is throw it up in the air and let Bryce and Gavin go get it because we have 6’6, 6’5, you know. Gavin will be a split and tight end. He’ll be all over the place presenting huge problems for defenses. And so we’re looking to exploit that. That’s something that we’re going into the season knowing we have in our arsenal. Then we have Carter, the quick good handed receiver and even Josh Gibson and Derek Walasvage. They’re catching a ball phenomenal this year for us during camp. We have high expectations for a lot of potential weapons there.

You have a bunch of big guys on the linemen that return for starters as well. How are they looking for this season?

They’re good. We’re very pleased with their progression. They’re doing a fantastic job. They bring back some size. They bring back strength and experience which is which is huge for the offense.Shane Martin got a lot of reps at tackle last year. He rotated from tight end to tackle. He actually wore two numbers last year because of that. He pretty much is focusing on the tackle position. Evan Watral is the other one that’s going to give us a lot of reps at that position. He’s a real big strong kid as well; new to the team, but really really really bought in and is doing everything we’re asking to do and is looking really good. So we’re excited about him. So we have some nice size that we hope that we could like you said give Jack protection and open some holes up here running backs.

The running back corps returns a lot of the reps from last year with multiple backs seeing carries last year. How confident are you in the running backs?

Yeah, we feel good about that as well. Eman is a quick, shifty running back. Carter’s a little shifty type of back and we have Tanner Sidella, Toby Renninger and Gavin Guers getting reps right now. They bring back some nice size or all 200 ish pounds. Some are a little more than 200, some just shy of 200. So we have both those quick shifting backs and we have those big bruising backs. We feel pretty good about it. They can keep everybody fresh and we can keep rotating bodies in there. We always prided ourselves of being a running back by committee. We didn’t have that 2000 yard rusher because we had four guys rush for 500 yards, and I think we can be like that again this year. We can really present some issues with teams and have them hopefully grind out some long drives.

Okay, so defensively now, what’s it looking like on defense overall? Defensive line? Linebackers? Secondary?

We return a lot as well. We are looking at probably seven to nine returners because we had a lot of kids playing a lot last year. So at corners you have Bryce Hensley, who I think will have a fantastic year on both sides of the ball. Eman Parker plays the other corner for us. Derek Walasavsge is playing a safety and Josh Gibson plays one of our linebacker/safety hybrid positions. We return both inside linebackers in Dean and Sidella. Toby Renninger was injured a lot last year, but when he got healthy he started for us at outside backer. Obviously we have Gavin Bartholomew and up front we have Logan and all of those linemen that we just talked about on offense they rotate on defense as well. Evan Watral has shown us really good things on defense. Gary Dieter is a big defensive threat too. This year gives us a nice depth at that interior. And then of course Shane Martin, who had a fantastic season for us last year has some All State recognition and different organizations have him ranked really high. So we feel that we have some good ones returning and if they play up their potential could be a very very good defense.
I guess that leads into my next question. So that defensive line is going to be scary, especially with the new schedule with some smaller opponents on the schedule due to Covid. Mahanoy, Haven, Pine Grove. So how do you feel about getting to play these coal region teams for another year and bring back some of the old matchups?

Not that we didn’t want to go against the Colonial, we were looking forward to that, but I think whenever you tell Schuylkill County teams that they get to battle with other Schuylkill County teams, you’re going to have a lot of energy because the kids know each other. Power football is king here in Schuylkill County. So, you know, they’re excited and looking forward to playing Pine Grove, looking forward to playing Mahanoy, etc. Even Tamaqua, we wouldn’t have played them this year and we’re looking to play them again. Some of these teams are coming off great runs, Tamaqua had a fantastic run for about two or three years there and we took our lumps the last couple years with them. They were better than us. They beat us and our kids are looking to get back to where we were about 5 years ago.

Okay, so last thing what are your keys and goals and expectations for the year? What do we need to do to have good success this year?

We have to be disciplined. We can’t extend drives for the offense by having penalties on defense. We can’t put ourselves behind the chains on offense by having penalties and fumbles and you know missteps so we have to play fundamentally sound football which I think this group can be focused on and can do a good job. And our front has to win football games and control the game. I think they should and they can. We just have to do it now. Saying it and doing it are two different things. We have to be smart. No matter who we play it’s going to be a battle.