(Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of articles revisiting the best local sports teams from each Big 30 school. Teams chosen range from undefeated regular seasons, to district titles, to success at the state level. Today: the 1986 Port Allegany football team)

The seeds for the 1986 Port Allegany football team, the last District 9 team to finish the season unbeaten, were planted years earlier.

Its core group of players — Dick Sherwood, Eric Stauffer, Torrey Daniels, Greg Rapp and Paul Robbins — had played football together from junior high to junior varsity to pick-up games almost daily in the summer for years. The five seniors had perhaps seen each other as much on the gridiron as they had in the classroom.

“This was well before cell phones and texts and such,” Daniels said. “Everybody knew when the next game was because it was the next day. We played a lot of football together.”

That familiarity translated to the varsity level when, as juniors in 1985, they went 8-1 with their lone loss coming to rival Smethport in heartbreaking fashion in the final game of the season.

From there, though, the mindset of that group and the rest of the team seemed quite simple: Make 1986 even better than ’85. And the only way to do that was equally as straightforward: They’d have to go undefeated.

“The determination and the commitment is what these guys had,” Sherwood said. “We all wanted the same goal. There was no selfishness and there was an overall team effort all summer long coming into that year. (We) had those weight sessions three times a week and two-a-days. It was all for that goal.”

Added Daniels, “Losing wasn’t an option.”

IT DIDN’T take long for other schools around the area to take note of the Gators, either.

Port Allegany beat its first three opponents (Coudersport, Otto-Eldred and Bradford Central Christian) by a combined 96-0. The team didn’t give up its first touchdown of the season until Week 4, slugging out a 14-8 victory over Youngsville before winning in dominant fashion again the next week with a 34-0 victory over Sheffield.

For head coach and defensive coordinator Bob Haskins, the strong play to start the season was a culmination of the growth from his kids after so many years playing together.

“We knew we had special kids coming up as sophomores but we were young and inexperienced then,” he recalled. “Every year they grew and continually got better and more hungry. A lot of times we got behind the 8-ball but the guys wouldn’t accept losing.”

The rest of the season followed a familiar one-sided tone for Port Allegany as it knocked off Ridgway (30-6), Emporium (32-6), Elk County Christian (42-0) and enacted a healthy dose of revenge over Smethport in the regular season finale (26-7).

Although the win against the Hubbers was the biggest in terms of rivalry and revenge, the Week 7 domination of Ridgway is what gave the team an added confidence boost that 1986 was going to be special.

“That was the turning point in our season,” Sherwood, who scored on kickoff returns of 80 and 72 yards in the game, affirmed. “We were both 6-0, it was a packed house, standing room only … you could just feel the momentum turning after we won that one.

“I always felt like we could beat anybody.”

IN TOTAL, the Gators allowed just 26 points over nine regular season games. Haskins was named the Big 30 Coach of the Year and Daniels (linebacker) and Robbins (safety) were selected to the Big 30 All-Star Team on the defensive unit. Robbins earned the Big 30 Defensive Player of the Year honor, becoming the first Port A player to win the Lou Foy Memorial Award since its inception in 1970.

“Everybody bought into the system and everybody knew their job,” Sherwood said. “I think we just worked as a machine and everybody did their job.”

Offensively, it was an admittedly one-dimensional attack with featured back Sherwood and tailbacks Robbins and Scott Gerhart. Leading passer Brian McCusker threw only 19 passes all season and Port A’s leading receiver (Scott McDowell) caught just five passes for 98 yards.

But that was no issue for the 5-foot-9, 165-pound Sherwood, who rushed for 1,209 yards and 13 touchdowns or the 5-9, 160-pound Robbins (nearly 600 yards, 10 touchdowns) and their running style.

“I’ll put it this way: Our running backs didn’t run out of bounds,” Daniels said. “If it was Dickie or Paul running, it was a lot of speed, a lot of power. Coach Haskins and Coach (Jim) Turner both stressed the timing effect and hit holes and hit hard and fast and beat (the other team) down.”

Blocking for that duo up front was Stauffer and Rapp, who both earned nods on the Big 30 All-Star Team. The Gators actually had five players named to that team, a feat that’s only been topped a handful of times in the Big 30’s 70-plus year history.

“I don’t think the guys in the trenches get enough credit,” Sherwood said. “If you don’t have them — they are the ones to open the holes and they’re the ones to fill the gaps on the defensive side — we aren’t as good a team.”

AS impressive as Port A’s regular season run was, the Gators knew they had a unique opportunity awaiting them at year’s end: The inaugural Allegheny Mountain League championship game.

The Gators, winners of the league’s Eastern Division, would face mighty Johnsonburg, the 10-0 champs of the Western Division.

Some 4,500 fans packed into Cameron County Stadium to watch the two teams battle. On one side of the ball was Jburg quarterback Tim Myers, who entered the game as one of District 9’s top passers. On the other was Port Allegany’s staunch defense.

“‘Burg was extremely talented and we had watched them and developed a game plan for Tim Myers, and as far as I can recall he was one of the more prolific passers that I’d seen in the years I coached,” Haskins recalled.

As motivated as they were for the marquee game against the Rams, the Gators got something of an extra boost before leaving the locker room by way of a pregame speech from assistant coach and offensive coordinator Jim Turner.

“I remember before (the title game) he had you so pumped up and it was just by speaking normal. Thank God he never raised his voice in anger because he was a big, strong man,” Daniels said. “But when we left that locker room to go play Johnsonburg, you didn’t need a doorway; you could run right through a wall. He had you in that right mental state.”

But Jburg was equally ready to play. Myers connected with Matt Kilhoffer for two touchdown passes and the Rams added a safety just before the break to put Port Allegany in unfamiliar territory — down 14-13 at halftime — despite rushing touchdowns from Gerhart and Sherwood.

The Gators wouldn’t trail for long, however, as the defense held Jburg scoreless for the game’s final 24 minutes and Sherwood scored the go-ahead touchdown on a 75-yard scamper in the third quarter.

An aggressive Port A secondary intercepted Myers five times in the game, including two by Robbins in the final five minutes, to clinch a 23-14 win in front of a raucous crowd.

In a stat perhaps most indicative of how dominant it was on both sides of the ball that year, the Gators outgained Johnsonburg on the ground, 367-50.

“It was some swampy, muddy weather,” said Sherwood, who rushed for 176 yards on just 12 carries. “But we were the Gators and we liked playing in the swamp.

“Those are memories that you will cherish for a lifetime and the friendships that I built with these players all these years and went to school with.”

UNLIKE high schoolers these days, there was no next game for those Gators. No district championship game and no chance to make a run in the PIAA playoffs.

Years later, Haskins, Sherwood and Daniels still sometimes wonder what-if and how far that team might have gone if there were D9 and state playoff games back then.

“We really were a clicking, fluent team,” Daniels said. “I really don’t think we were ever put to a true test, but it would have been really fun to be put to one. I think about it often about how far we could have gone.”

All five of those lifelong teammates went on to play one final game together in the Big 30 Charities Classic a few months later, and, in an ending that was scripted nearly perfectly, they helped Pennsylvania to a 26-0 win over New York.

In 11 games those all-stars played together that year, they gave up just six touchdowns.

Haskins, who went on to coach almost another 20 years in Port Allegany, coached that game with Turner.

“They were just outstanding kids,” Haskins said. They were not only great athletes but good kids that went on to be good adults.”

The group still sees each other occasionally at class reunions and interacts on social media, still holding onto a bond that went beyond the football field.

“We called (1986-87) ‘The year of the Gator’ because we had so much success in all of our sports programs,” Sherwood said. “We won a lot of games in wrestling, basketball; it wasn’t just going 10-0 in football and winning the AML.”

Tragically, Robbins passed away at just 46 years old in 2015, but isn’t far from his former teammates’ minds.

“Paul just led by example like a lot of us did,” Sherwood said. “I remember his good spirit, leadership and hard work.

“That was all of us. We wouldn’t ask any of the other players to do anything that we wouldn’t do and that’s how we wanted it to be. We wanted them to earn our respect, and we weren’t those ra-ra people; we wanted to set by example.”