When Sports Were Played: The Miracle on Humbert Lane
In this edition of “When Sports Were Played,” we take you back to Sept. 27, 1997 and Washington’s miraculous comeback against Quaker Valley.
With little more than five minutes left in its Three Rivers Conference battle with Quaker Valley, Washington was looking everything like a team that would be relegated to playing out the string.
A 1-4 start, including a crippling 0-3 mark in the conference, loomed just minutes away. Then, it happened – the Miracle on Humbert Lane.
The Little Prexies, facing a series of improbable obstacles, scored 23 points in the final two minutes and pulled out an incredible, unlikely, amazing, pick your own adjective, 35-28 win.
“Before the game, I challenged this team,” said Washington Coach Guy Montecalvo. “I told them we’ve had a pair of 1-3 teams before at this point. They weren’t good teams; this is a good team.”
Yes, but could he ever have imagined this comeback?
No. 3 ranked Quaker Valley, behind Derek Molter, was able to build a 28-12 lead. Molter rushed for 206 yards on 28 carries and scored twice to spark the lead. But when the Quakers (2-1, 3-2) needed to run out the clock, they curiously abandoned the run.
After failing on three straight passes, QV had to turn the ball over midway through the fourth quarter.
Washington (1-2, 2-3) responded with a 10-play, 68-yard drive that resulted in Scott Belcastro’s one-yard scoring run with 1:58 left. On the drive, Belcastro carried five times for 48 yards. Steve Skaggs then hit Tim Carl on a conversion pass to make the score 28-20.
But still, Quaker Valley was in control. The Quakers easily recovered an onside kick and returned to the ground game. Two straight runs forced Washington to exhaust two of its three timeouts. Yet, inexplicably, on third-and-5, QV opted for a pass play that resulted in a motion penalty. An incomplete pass on the following play left Washington with hope.
Instead of running out the clock, QV was able to kill just 25 seconds. And they left the Prexies with one timeout. That’s when the Quakers lost complete control. On the next play, punter Nick Zdral panicked and dropped a snap, giving Washington the ball on the QV 37.
Three plays later, Belcastro ran through a huge hole for 22 yards. After Washington used it last timeout, Belcastro scored from three yards out with 36.7 seconds left. Down 28-26, Skaggs took a snap, ran right and dove in for the two points.
The high was on fire.
Overtime seemed inevitable, but the Quakers still had another grenade to throw on themselves. With 25 seconds left, quarterback John Martin overthrew his receiver and was intercepted by Michael Sutton, who returned it to the QV 34. On the next play, Skaggs hit Diontae Walker with a 33-yard pass.
With just four seconds left, Washington was frantically trying to line up and spike the ball, but in another strange move, Quaker Valley called its last timeout, allowing the Prexies time to regroup.
Sean Thomas scored on the next play to complete the storybook finish.
“I’ve never been associated with anything like this,” said Montecalvo, who fought back tears of joy following the game. “Earlier Friday, somebody told me that we might be able to be good next year. I said, ‘Hey, we haven’t given up yet.’ This was our first playoff game. If we didn’t win this game, we were done. We knew that coming in and played like it at the end.”
Quaker Valley coach Tom Liberty held an extensive closed-door meeting with his players and was unavailable for comment. Belcastro finished with 194 yards on 21 carries and Skaggs was 10 of 18 passing for 125 yards.