1995 – Plymouth Whitemarsh – Greatest Football Team Ever

Plymouth Whitemarsh

Greatest Football Team Ever

By Jack Coll

     Bruno, Tommy Bruno, way too skinny to be a quarterback, Moore, Key Moore, he just wasn’t that fast, Keaser, Vinnie, this kid was just way too small to be playing any high school sports, and then there was Robert Reed, a couple of Scott boys, Lee and James who were both better than their brother Da Rel’, who happens to play professional football currently with the New York Giants. Paul Borusiewicz, Chris Wright, Phil Guarino, another pint size kid tough as nails, a couple of Dan’s, Kelly and Smith, Chuck Tornetta, Kevin Gall, Jim Peiffer, Jay Crosby, and Craig Quinn just to name a couple of kids who played on the greatest Plymouth Whitemarsh Football Team ever.

It was the fall of 1995, football season all over the country was well underway and it was football as usual at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School.  The Colonials were 5-0, going into a game with Souderton, a well-respected team in the league.  The two teams were knotted 7-7 at halftime and the Colonials had made a few mistakes.  Chris Wright righted the ship with a four yard touchdown run in the third quarter giving P-W a 13-7 lead, a lead that fell in the fourth quarter when the Indians scored leaving the Colonials a point down 14-13, late in the fourth quarter.

As an observer of most of the games during that 95’ season, it was here that the P-W squad became great.  Their first five victories had come relatively easy, but with just over two minutes remaining in the game against Souderton, and the Indians driving for a touchdown that would secure the game, it was time to find out if the 1995 Colonials football team was just another good team or if they could go on and become a great team.   The Indians moved the ball down field with under three minutes to play into scoring position, Rob Reed sacked the Indian quarterback twice knocking them out of scoring position forcing Souderton to punt.

With just under two minutes remaining in the game, Bruno, the skinny quarterback, put together a 10 play game winning drive that covered 63 yards.  Key Moore, who wasn’t that fast, but if you wanted to tackle him you had better bring a lunch because when you stepped in front of him when he was carrying the ball it was gonna take you a little bit of time to pick yourself up off the turf, Moore ran it in from the four yard line for the winning touchdown. A two point pass from the skinny kid to Lee Scott gave P-W a 21-14 victory advancing the Colonials to a 6-0 record and the rest as they say is history.  Although the Colonials racked up a 13-0 record before losing in the State Playoff’s, I always pointed to this game as the defining moment in the Colonials season.  Bruno’s performance was great completing 10 passes for 129 yards and a touchdown, Vinnie Keaser only handled the ball four times but ripped off 75 yards, Borusiewicz caught three passes with a TD, Chris Wright and Key Moore caught two passes each, and Rob Reed, Vinnie Keaser, and Lee Scott each caught one pass.

A week later the Colonials went to 7-0 beating Quakertown 29-0.  Moore ran for a hundred yards, Reed blocked a punt and Stewart Kupfer recovered for a safety, Moore, Wright, and Craig Quinn all scored for P-W.  Dan Smith, Jim Pfeiffer, Jason Sugalski, and Mike Cho among others flexed their defensive muscles in the shutout.  Speaking of shutouts, after seven games the Colonials had scored 196 points allowing their opponents just 50 points.

In game eight P-W traveled to Cheltenham to take on the undefeated Panthers. A Mike Kelly 32 yard field goal, a Bruno to Reed touchdown pass, and a Keaser two point conversion only gave the Colonials 11 points, but it was enough for an 11-7 victory.  With an 8-0 record, the Colonials began to eye their first appearance in the State Playoffs. The Colonials advance to 10-0 with a 33-7 victory over Pennridge, Plymouth Whitemarsh High School Football Team had only reached ten victories three times in the school’s history dating back to 1954.  In 1991 the Colonials were 10-2, in 1974 the team had some very talented players posting a 10-1 season, and in 1973 the football team posted the school’s only undefeated season going 10-0-1.

The Colonials brought out the Key Moore –Vinnie Keaser show to shutout Cheltenham 16-0 in the District One Playoffs.  The stars of the game were the Colonial offensive line that included Dan Smith, Mike Tadeo, Jason Sugalski, Chuck Tornetta and Kevin Gall.  The bad news was the 12-0 Colonials won a date with Central Bucks West for the PIAA District One Class AAAA Championship.  As I recall it C. B. West under Head Coach Mike Pettine, (a Conshy boy) hadn’t lost a game in over five years at one point.

The Colonials had played C. B. West twice losing in 1990, and 1991, by a single point, but this was 1995, and the Colonials went on to beat West for the championship 12-0.  Stars were plenty, Bruno, Reed, Moore, Keaser, Scott, both of them, but the two real stars were Dan Kelly, getting his first varsity start, who carried eight times for 38 yards, and sophomore Brian Dugas who played on the offensive line opening holes for running backs all night long.

The only thing worse than having to play West, was having to play East Stroudsburg, 13-0 who had a running back by the name of James Mungro, the two teams faced off for the PIAA Class AAAA state quarterfinals. James Mungro was a junior running back that had more than 5,000 career total yards, 3,000 of them running out of the backfield, with 47 touchdowns scored in just 13 games.  Mungro didn’t let anybody down adding to his touchdown total as he dashed for an 82 yard touchdown run just minutes into the game.  Later in the game East Stroudsburg quarterback hit Mungro with a screen pass, Mungro broke a few tackles and ran 85 yards for his 49th touchdown of the season.  As we all know by now P-W won the game 24-13, an interesting stat of the game was that East Stroudsburg finished the game with 289 total yards, James Mungro accounted for 287 of those yards.

We all know the ending to this story, the Colonials lost to Lower Dauphin in the finals 33-6.  The Colonials gave the ball away six times; the Colonials would like to play that game one more time as they produced better statics than Dauphin with 214 yards to Dauphin’s 170.  P-W sacked Lower Dauphin three times, (Gall, Reed, and Tadeo) with Bruno getting sacked only once.  Lower Dauphin scored 33 points but only managed 13 first downs to the Colonials 11.

How exciting was it that the 13-0 Colonials played in front of 10,000 fans in Middleton, Pennsylvania back in the late fall of 1995.  To all the coaches, players, water boys and cheerleaders, thanks for the memories.