George Guido: Washington Township sports memories remain

By: George Guido
Saturday, March 5, 2022 | 6:56 PM

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Memories are all that’s left of the former Washington Township High School.

The building, most recently used as an elementary school in the Kiski Area School District, was torn down last month by the property owner, Tresco Companies of Salem Township.

Meyer’s RV, a New York-based RV dealer, hopes to buy the property it had been leasing from Tresco for the past two years to display RV’s.

But before all the rubble is cleaned up, let’s take a look at Washington Township’s sports legacy.

Oddly enough, the most memorable basketball game was the final game in school history.

On Feb. 22, 1966, Washington Township set a school record for points in a game with a 112-45 drubbing of Saltsburg High School. Senior Chester Latham also set a school mark by scoring 50 points in the game, one of the best marks in local history.

The team finished at 13-7 in the final season. On July 1, 1966, Washington Township High School was absorbed into the Kiski Area system. The building became a junior high school. With further consolidation of the school district, it became an elementary school.

Latham’s performance broke the old school mark of 46 points in a game by Bob Long several years earlier. At the time, Long played flanker for the Green Bay Packers.

Several months later, Long became the first Alle-Kiski Valley athlete to play in a Super Bowl when the Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in what was then called the AFL-NFL Championship Game.

Washington Township opened in 1927 and began sponsoring football in 1929. The school joined the WPIAL in 1934 when basketball was added. The official nickname was the Red Raiders, but newspapers and others referred to the team as the Crimson Tide.

Hall of fame coach Don Earley really put Washington Township on the football map. Earley took over in 1959 when the team went 3-3-3.

In Earley’s second season, the Red Raiders won the WPIAL Class B title with a 26-0 victory over Perryopolis, now known as Frazier.

In 1961, Washington Township completed another undefeated regular season and qualified for the WPIAL championship game, this time losing to Avella, 13-0.

Class B was the smallest classification at the time.

Talk about finishing with a flourish, in the final six seasons of Washington Township football (1960-65), the team compiled a 40-13-1 record.

The final Red Raiders football game was a 31-6 victory over Ligonier on Nov. 6. 1966.

If you’ve ever been past the 11-acre site of the old school along Route 66, you’ll notice the area nestled up against a hillside was too small for a football stadium. Washington Township played its home games at Owens Field in Apollo on Saturday nights.

In basketball, the school lost a section tiebreaker to Apollo in 1940. In 1955, the Red Raiders won Sec, 21 outright and defeated Pitcairn, 60-40, in the Class B first round before losing to Irwin.

PIAA basketball update

The A-K Valley will have seven teams in the PIAA playoffs where first round games will be either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Here is a rundown of the teams in the hunt:

Boys – Fox Chapel, Highlands, Burrell, Deer Lakes

Girls – Knoch, St. Joseph, Apollo-Ridge

Matchups are scheduled to be released Sunday afternoon,.

A full rundown of the games, sites and times will be on triblive.com Sunday evening and in Monday’s Valley News Dispatch edition.