MALVERN GOES STREAKING

December 2020

Have you ever had a time in your life where you are just on a roll? Everything seems to be breaking the right way and you’re just feeling really good? Well, Malvern Prep football has been on that exact roll on quite a few occasions.

Malvern entered the Inter-Ac in 1950 and became the conference’s co-champion under Mike Mayock in 1959 and 1962. The Friars barely missed titles in 1951,1960 and 1961. They were again co-champs in 1969. It wasn’t until 1972 that the Friars finally won their first outright IA championship under Jack “Shark” McGuinn. A key win in the title run was a hard fought 13-10 victory over the Patriots of Germantown Academy. In 1973, they started a bit slow out of the gate, going 2-1-1 in their non- league schedule. MP opened up their IA season against a talented GA squad looking for revenge. The Patriots returned the 1972 favor and came away with a tough 15-8 win.

Then, it happened…

Malvern Prep went streaking. The Friars recovered from the loss and went on to win their three remaining IA games in 1973. And then they won, and won, and won, and won some more. From 1974 through 1980, the boys in blue won an incredible seven IA titles in a row while compiling an unrivaled 28-0 record. Penn Charter has the league record with 12 titles in a row from 1913 through 1924. “Shark” won the titles in 1974, 1975, 1976 and 1977. (www.tedsilary.com). Gamper took it the rest of the way. Malvern came close to making it eight in a row in 1981. They won their 1st three against Haverford School 27-0, Germantown Academy 10-0 and Penn Charter 10-7. The streak came to an end with an 13-6 loss to Episcopal. If you’re keeping a running tally, that is 34 games in a row without an IA loss. In 25 of the 34 games, Malvern recorded 14 shutouts and another 11 games where they gave up one touchdown or less. Defense, defense, defense.

If you wanted to play the “if pigs had wings” game, IF Malvern beat GA on the front end in 1973 and IF they beat EA on the back end in 1981 they would have won 10 straight titles (1972 to 1981). If you disregard that theory, in these same 10 years the Friars went 39-2 with 8 outright titles. Nice job!

STREAKING PART 2

While the IA title run was happening, the Friars actually manufactured a streak within a streak. Malvern won their last 4 games of 1973 -- beating Penn Charter 13-7, Episcopal 62-18, Haverford 27-0 and St. Joe’s Prep 33-19 on Thanksgiving. In 1974, Malvern recorded their 2nd undefeated season in three years under Coach McGuinn by going a perfect 10-0. Over that span, they outscored their opponents by a combined 261-79 margin. In 1975, they opened with a 13-13 tie to Woodrow Wilson and then proceeded to run the table the rest of the way with a 9-0 mark. Unfortunately, the Friars opened the 1976 season with a 28-8 loss to Cardinal O’Hara,, but still finished a solid 7-2-1 on the year. The unbeaten streak spanned 2 ½ seasons, where they went 23-0-1. The Friars offense cranked out a productive 27 points-per- game during that stretch of dominance.

ONE LAST STREAK

Good things usually happen in 3’s, right? Or wait, is that bad things? Well for the Friars, it was definitely a good thing. The Blue started the 1994 with a very uncommon 2-3 start. The losses were by 8, 14 and 5 points so you knew the coaches and the players were on the right track. They turned things around to win the Inter Ac outright at 4-0 while finishing the season with a 7-3-1 record. Their tie was a 12-12 contest on Thanksgiving with Archbishop Carroll. The season of 1995 proved to be another banner year for the Malvern football program, as the squad became the 2nd team under Gamp and the 4th overall to finish undefeated. They avenged losses to Downingtown and Loyola (MD) from the previous year, were perfect in the Inter Ac, and finished the season with a commanding 40-7 win over Carroll on Thanksgiving. The extension of the streak into 1996 was short lived with an opening win against Valley Forge followed by a streak-snapping loss to West Chester Henderson. During this span of games, the Friars were 16-0-1 with two IA titles

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT STREAKING WAS OVER, THERE WAS ONE MORE

Good things usually happen in 4’s, right? The Friars were not done streaking. And the story isn’t quite over yet, either. Streak No. 4 started in 2016 and ended during the 2019 season. And just like streak No. 1, those pesky Churchmen from Episcopal were the spoilers. In 2016, Malvern opened the season with a crazy back and forth 37-34 loss against EA. From there, the Friars went on their roll – winning the last four league games of 2016. They followed with back-to-back Inter-Ac titles in 2017 and 2018 while going 5-0 in both seasons. Things were looking good as the Friars started 2019 with wins over GA 33-21 and a last-man-standing 49-44 win over Penn Charter at Quigley Field. The IA streak stood at a robust 16 games in a row until the Episcopal game. EA QB Marcus McDaniel had a great game, accounting for 272 yards of offense as the Churchmen emerged with a 29-27 victory.

You’d think Episcopal has had their way with the Friars over the years considering how much they’ve been mentioned in these streaks. Give credit where credit is due: EA has had some really good teams/players, and many of these contests have been hard fought. However, when it comes to the series’ overall record, MP stands tall with 49 wins, 18 losses and 3 ties in 70 years. Not too shabby.

More to come……………

12.14.20