Albert Hammers made a choice four years ago. Following a season year at Tyrone Area High School where Albert was named to the Associated Press Small School First Team All-State squad as an offensive lineman as a senior, Hammers decided to attend nearby Saint Francis University to continue both his education and football careers.
Coming out of high school, Albert was intent on getting the best education he could.
“It’s a good school up here,” said Hammers, who has been on the Northeast Conference Academic Honor Roll every semester he has been at St. Francis. “That’s one of the reasons I picked St. Francis to get a good education. Their accounting and business education department is accredited. I feel the school is going to get me a good degree that is going to help me when I’m out of school to get a good job and make some money.”
Hammers was used to a winning program at Tyrone, but wins have come hard at St. Francis. The Red Flash finished the 2002 football season with two wins in their final three games, including a 14-7 win in overtime over Robert Morris on Saturday. Their one loss in that stretch was a 7-0 decision to Monmouth. Prior to that streak however, St. Francis had lost their previous 30 games in a row.
First year coach Dave Opfar is intent on changing the program around. The coach has leaned heavily on the eight seniors, who played their final game for St. Francis on Saturday. If the second half of the 2002 season is an indication, Coach Opfar may have turned the corner in the Red Flash football program.
Part of his program began with the switching of Albert Hammers, who has started on the offensive line since arriving as a freshman, from left guard to center midway through the 2002 season.
“Albert was probably the one guy we had on the line,” explained Coach Opfar, “who was versatile enough to play a couple positions. We were really bad at the beginning of the year and we had to juggle our offensive line. In the middle of the season, we started to gel a little bit and Albert was a big part of that. We were able to bring him to center, that’s the most difficult position to play. You have to snap the ball and that leaves you with one hand to try to play against 300-pound nose tackles. Albert was able to do that because he had great quickness and great technique. He developed into a leader, he actually had to talk. He started to grow a little and mature, and really got into it. He played another great game today. Very rarely does Albert make mental mistakes. We are really going to miss Albert. We have to go out and find some help at that position.”
St. Francis beat Robert Morris for the first time in the history of the series between the two schools. Robert Morris had outscored the Red Flash 153-7 in the last three meetings.
On Senior Day at the Pine Bowl, which actually looked more like a mud bowl, the St. Francis defense got the first score of the afternoon. Midway through the first quarter, Red Flash sophomore defensive lineman Jason Dean knocked the ball out of Robert Morris quarterback Andrew Guyer’s hands and fellow defensive lineman Robert Miller-Mitchell, a freshman from Indian Valley, picked the ball up and returned it 22 yards for the touchdown. Jeremy Reesey booted the PAT to give St. Francis a 7-0 advantage they would hold until halfway through the fourth quarter.
Much of the day on the soggy, muddy turf was played between the 30-yard lines, which was the worst part of the field. For St. Francis, their best defense was an offense that kept the ball out of Robert Morris’ hands, plugging away with 5-foot-11, 200-pound junior Michael Hall carrying the ball 34 times for a game-high 150 yards. Hall, who was a defensive back until Opfar moved him over to offense in midseason, finished with 878 yards on the season and doubtless will be one of Opfar’s building blocks for a successful 2003 campaign.
“Hall has been effective the last five or six games,” said Opfar, “once we were smart enough to put him back there. He’s certainly not going to break many 70 or 80-yarders, but he will get six, seven yards at a clip. That wears defenses down. Today was the perfect day for that.”
St. Francis helped Robert Morris to maintain their touchdown drive in the fourth quarter with a pair of big penalties on back-to-back plays for a total of 25 yards. Guyer, a freshman, began the drive by hitting tight end Jeremy Wise on a dump-off over the middle for 30 yards and capped the march with a three yard TD sending everybody right, then going left untouched on a naked bootleg to the endzone. St. Francis got a hand on Doug Lewis’ PAT kick, but the ball just barely crept over the crossbar anyway to tie the score.
In overtime, with each team getting a chance from the 25-yard line, the Red Flash got the ball first.
St. Francis freshman quarterback Bo Border tossed a 17-yard completion to Matt Rychlicki to get the ball to the RM-eight on the opening play. After the Colonials’ defense threw Hall for three yards in losses on the first two plays, Robert Morris was flagged for interference in the endzone, putting the ball at the Colonials-2 with a first and goal.
Hall scored over the left side on the following play for what proved to be the winner and Reesey added the PAT kick.
Robert Morris got their chance, but the St. Francis defense forced two pass incompletions and smothered Guyer for sacks totaling 17 yards on second and fourth down attempts to seal the win.
“It’s great to end my career with a win,” concluded Hammers. “This was the first overtime I ever played in my football career and to win it too, makes it so much better.”
