Shady Side Academy football motivated by winless ’16 season

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, September 21, 2018 | 8:12 PM

Two years ago, Steel Valley cruised to WPIAL and Class 2A football championships while invoking the mercy rule in every one of their 15 games. That same year, Shady Side Academy went winless. The Indians had to forfeit their final game because they didn’t have enough healthy players.

This year, SSA entered Week 4 undefeated and scored a 56-36 dismantling of the then-undefeated Ironmen two weeks ago.

Coach Chuck DiNardo was an assistant on the winless 2016 team.

“It was tough. But the kids never quit,” he said. “They still wanted to play that last game even though we had less than 11 healthy players. It was a long season, but it was a learning season. The seniors that are leading us now were sophomores.”

DiNardo was confident things would get back to the way they were.

“Coach (Dave) Havern had so much success during his tenure. Then everything that could go wrong did go wrong in his final season,” DiNardo said. “It helped so much having him stick around and coach the offense and the quarterbacks.

“Dave has worked so hard to build up Shady Side Academy football for so many years, and it’s good that we have brought the team back to the level we’re used to. Last season, the team came to camp feeling that they had something to prove. They used that winless season as motivation. It was disappointing to narrowly miss the playoffs in 2017, and that was our motivation for this season.”

Led by seniors Skyy Moore, Billy Frohlich, Dino Tomlin and Alex Bellinotti, the SSA offense has been giving the scoreboards a workout, pouring in more than 50 points a game. Moore and Tomlin are reeling in offers from colleges, but DiNardo doesn’t want the defense to go underrated.

“Yes, we have a lot of big-time talent at the skill positions, but we felt one of the keys to turning things around was to get back to the hard-nosed, ball-hawking defense that was a staple of our playoff teams under Coach Havern. We believe we’ve accomplished that,” he said.

“We still have a lot of football to be played, and we cannot be complacent. We cannot put too much into the press clippings. With what a lot of these players went through in 2016, I don’t think they’ll let that happen. The leadership of our seniors will keep the team focused.”

Moore, who rushed for four TDs and passed for four more against Steel Valley, felt he and his teammates would be a team to reckon with in 2018.

“We came on strong at the end of last year and were disappointed that we didn’t make the playoffs,” Moore said. “As a team, we dedicated ourselves to working harder so that wouldn’t happen this year.”

Marty Stewart is a freelance writer.

Tags: Shady Side Academy