Quaker Valley football enjoys highlights, laments inconsistency during 2024 season

By: Ray Fisher
Sunday, November 10, 2024 | 11:01 AM

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There were two givens in the Quaker Valley football season.

Any time the Quakers reached 30 points in the scoring column, they won the game.

QV defeated Valley, 34-14, in Week 4 and McGuffey, 33-10, in Week 9.

The Quakers finished with a 2-7 record and were 1-5 in the Class 3A Western Hills Conference.

QV senior running back Jack Diemert ended his high school football career by rushing for 190 yards and three scores on runs of 15, 40 and 55 yards against McGuffey (0-9, 0-6) in his team’s season finale.

He rambled for 110 yards and scored three times against Valley.

“I thought we all played very well against McGuffey,” Diemert said. “We started a little slow in the beginning, but we started to work together as a team and it started to pick up.”

On the year, Diemert, a four-year starter, attained 589 yards and 12 touchdowns on 141 carries and had two 100-yard rushing games.

Diemert collected most of his yardage behind the blocking of the offensive line. The starting unit consisted of senior guards Sebastian Juarez-Safran (6-foot-2, 305) and Ty Kretzler (5-11, 305), freshman tackle Tyler Cunnard (6-1, 210), junior tackle Kris Brown (6-3, 220) and sophomore center Aris Haniotes (6-3, 216).

The athletic running back accounted for 1,022 yards on the season, averaging 113.6 per game. He caught 23 passes for 146 yards and added 287 yards on kickoff returns.

Defensively, Diemert led the Quakers in tackles with 109 (56 solo, 53 assisted) and averaged 12.1 tackles per game.

Diemert also is a wrestling standout as a fourth-year competitor at QV.

He won 28 and 30 bouts the past two seasons while competing at 152 and 145 pounds and was a WPIAL medalist both years. With a three-year record of 75-45, Diemert is looking to eclipse the century mark in career wins this winter.

On the gridiron, Diemert’s favorite memories in his four-year career were “just being with the team and being able to play with my friends every day.”

Quaker Valley’s junior quarterback Atticus Barr passed for 103 yards and a touchdown in the season finale against McGuffey. Barr’s 17-yard TD pass to junior wideout Logan Benedict in the first quarter gave the Quakers the lead for good.

“We started off a little slow on the first couple drives of the game against McGuffey,” Barr said, “but then we came together and started playing our game as a team and executing what we practiced. When we do that, we’re a great team.

“However, we struggled to do that consistently this season, and that was one of our biggest problems. If we played more consistently, we could’ve had a lot better record, I believe, because we couldn’t finish out games. But overall I’m proud of our players and think we showed people we could make plays.”

QV scored four times in the first three quarters against the Highlanders, capped by junior Ben McHenry’s 35-yard interception return in the third period to give the home team a 28-6 advantage.

Barr completed 84 of 189 passes this season for 779 yards and four scores. He threw four interceptions and averaged 86.6 yards passing per game.

Barr’s favorite targets in 2024 were Diemert and senior wide receiver Dom Cox-Giles, who reeled in 23 passes covering 223 yards. Cox-Giles averaged 9.7 yards per catch.

Two other top receivers were Benedict, with 19 catches for 236 yards and four TDs, and junior wideout Ben McHenry, with 16 receptions for 114 yards. Benedict averaged a team-best 12.4 yards per catch.

Others who caught passes for the Quakers this season were juniors Rex Fatur and Jayden Juliano, sophomore Quentin Henderson and Barr. Juliano nabbed just one pass, but it was good for a 45-yard touchdown.

McHenry rarely left the field in QV’s games. Along with holding down a receiving position, he rushed for 76 yards, picked up 481 yards on kickoff returns, returned punts and, on defense, ranked among the team leaders in tackles. He also racked up 110 yards on four interception returns.

Diemert was complemented defensively by Cox-Giles, Haniotes, McHenry and Fatur, as well as Benedict, sophomore Josh Odom and senior Lance Burns.

Cox-Giles averaged 6.5 tackles per game and had four interceptions; Odom averaged 5.9 tackles per contest.

Haniotes led the team in sacks, and Benedict reached paydirt five times.

Looking ahead to the 2025 season, Barr said all the young players on the current QV squad will have a year under their belts, which hopefully will be on display in more games.

“We can have a good team because we have a lot of young talent and we are only losing a few players,” Barr said. “We just need to get to work in the offseason.

“I’m going to be working hard this offseason and am going to be ready for my last season (at QV).”

Tags: Quaker Valley