If you haven’t heard the name Thomas Tyner before, you need to start getting familiar with it.
Who is he? He’s a senior running back at Beaverton (Ore.) Aloha. He’s been on the Oregon high school state football (and track) radar since he was just a freshman. He’s one of the top football prospects in the nation and he’s already verbally committed to play football next year at Oregon.
Oh, and he rushed for 643 yards and 10 touchdowns last Friday. On his 18th birthday, nonetheless.
“I’m sore, and it feels good,” Tyner told The Oregonian the morning after his state record-setting night.
It was a good thing that Tyner scored 10 touchdowns, because Aloha needed all of them to top Lake Oswego (Ore.) Lakeridge, 84-63.
Four of Tyner’s touchdowns were for 60 yards or more. But it was a mere 34-yarder that broke a 63-63 tie in the fourth quarter that finally put Aloha in front for good.
Aloha head coach Chris Casey said it was a game like none he had ever experienced. The 147 combined points between the teams was also a state record.
But even he couldn’t get over the performance by his star running back.
“Thomas is amazing,” Casey told The Oregonian. “We had great blocking at the point of attack and we had great blocking down field at times, but he literally outran people play after play.”
Statistically Speaking
Here’s something you don’t see everyday.
Three Des Moines-area football players scored on 99-yard plays on the same night.
According to the Des Moines Register, Sioux City (Iowa) West’s Avery Thedford returned a kickoff 99 yards for a score, Moville (Iowa) Woodbury Central quarterback Matthew Wright was credited with a 99-yard touchdown pass and Fort Dodge (Iowa) High’s Austin Anderson had a 99-yard fumble recovery for a score.
All three plays either set new or tied current Iowa state records.
Losing Streaks Snapped
Rural Valley (Pa.) West Shamokin defeated Oakmont (Pa.) Riverview last Friday, 25-6. As two teams that play at the smallest classification in Pennsylvania, this typically wouldn’t be a noteworthy score.
But this time it is, because the win snapped the longest-ever losing streak in the history of the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL) district … at 46 games.
The Wolves hadn’t won a game since 2007 … back when the current West Shamokin seniors were just in eighth grade.
“Ah, it’s great,” head coach Josh Gilliland told the Indiana Gazette. “We put the monkey in the closet. I told the kids, ‘There’s no looking back now.’ ”
But West Shamokin wasn’t the only school breaking streaks last weekend.
Fallsburg (N.Y.) High broke a 20-game losing streak, winning its first game in the history of the program with a 52-6 victory over Livingston Manor (N.Y.) High.
“It feels good, it’s been a long time,” Fallsburg head coach Adam Ramirez told the Times Herald-Record. “I didn’t think it would take that long. Hopefully, it gives the kids confidence.”
Cary (N.C.) Green Hope ended a 37-game conference losing streak with a 23-13 win over Holly Springs (N.C.) High.
“It had to come some time,” quarterback Chris Tutwiler told the News & Observer. “We really came together there at the end. There wasn’t one kid who played better than anyone else, we all came together.”
Gratuitous Name-Dropping of the Week
It’s a game that shouldn’t draw much attention, but did … simply due to the name associated with the school that lost.
Oklahoma City (Okla.) Millwood defeated Dallas (Texas) Prime Prep, 40-12, in a game that The Oklahoman described as “ugly and scary and exceptional and enthralling.”
Prime Prep is the school founded by former NFLer Deion Sanders. He’s also the team’s head coach.
“Everything around this game was real big,” Millwood coach Tony Henry told The Oklahoman. “Our kids were excited about it. Heck, I was excited about it, seeing a guy like that on the other team. He’s probably one of the 10 most famous sports icons in the world. When you have something like that, you just have fun with it and enjoy the time.”
With the loss, Prime Prep dropped to 0-3 on the season. Millwood, meanwhile, remained undefeated at 3-0.
“It’s a teaching and a learning process, not only for the kids, but for the coaches as well,” Sanders told the paper. “It’s challenging and it’s also promising. We’ve got some coaches who played in the NFL, so our expectation is something.”
They’ve Got the ‘Right Moves’
If you’re a fan of Tom Cruise and movies from the early 1980s, then the game last Friday night between Johnstown (Pa.) High and Johnstown (Pa.) Westmont Hilltop was made for you.
The two schools hosted a reenactment of the 1983 hit movie “All the Right Moves,” complete with the movie soundtrack playing over the loud speakers and the coin flip by the movie’s technical director Don Yannessa. Yannessa is a coaching legend in Western Pennsylvania in his own right, having coached both Aliquippa (Pa.) High and Ambridge (Pa.) High before retiring.
The movie was filmed in Johnstown … and according to the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, the reenactment game featured both a downpour and a fumbled snap, just like in the movie.
But unlike the movie, it was Ampipe (played by Johnstown High) that topped Walnut Heights (played by Westmont Hilltop), 20-17.
And the kids took the reenactment seriously.
“It was big stepping in here, especially since Tom Cruise was in this film,” Ampipe … erm, Johnstown junior quarterback Deion Moore told the Tribune-Democrat. “We felt it was our duty since Ampipe lost last time. We wanted to come through and get this win.”
Comment Via Facebook