Memories of the 2020 championship season  have been moved  to their own page: 2020 Oilers. Main page streamlined week of March 1. Features  previously on that page have been moved to Stuff That Was in the Paper (or not). 

These seniors played on three straight District 10 title teams! (Scott Stahl)

District 10 Class AAA champs

• Ninth district title overall

• Eighth D-10 crown since 1995

• First D-10 championship since 2011

2020-21 seasons

FRANKLIN

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BOYS 19-7, D-10 3A champs

The Knights' season ended March 20 in the state quarterfinals with a 53-45 loss to District 6 champion Bishop Guilfoyle.

Easton Fulmer 530 points, (1,018 career), Hayden Adams 335 (879 career), Luke Guth 242, Damon Curry 207, Zak Smith 156, Cade Adams 104

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GIRLS 8-14, POs

Camdon Bashor 251, Reilly Phipps 126, Lauren Billingsley 119 (18 games), Zelika Hartle 105

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D9 and D10 sports

Coach Jason Fulmer is on the right in a mask with the red sleeves giving the No. 1 signal. He's standing beside regulars (from right) Damon Curry, Cade Adams (the blond), Zak Smith, Hayden Adams (surrounded by arms), Easton Fulmer and Luke Guth.  Johnathan Leccia, the  6-7 soph, would be the tallest guy in the back behind E. Fulmer.

CRANBERRY

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BOYS 4-12

Cameron Russell 151 pts, J.T. Stahlman 130 (13 games), Noel Bunyak 110

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GIRLS 4-9

Ava Ferringer 189, Kaia Dean 101, Kendall Findlay 49

ROCKY GROVE

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BOYS 6-15

Isaac Clayton 340, Caden Toscano 275, D'Andre Whitman 120

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GIRLS 1-13

Abby Williams 106, Rylee Reed 70, Paige Cresswell 37

OIL CITY

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BOYS 10-11, POs

Holden Stahl 213 (792 career), Judias Johnson 206, Cam Van wormer 174, Isaiah Aeschbacher 138 (20 games), Rob Vanwormer 121, Jake Hornbeck 120

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GIRLS 4-18

Jenna Fischli 144, Maddy Marczak 127 (19 games), Emma Stahl 100 

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VC

BOYS 3-17

Andrew Burda 301 (18 games), 1,224 career points; Jake Liederbach 229, Colin Deeter 74

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GIRLS 4-13

Lily Homan 193 (14 games), Molly Mietus 94, Kennedy Liederbach 69

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Parade of District 10 basketball champions

1921 Oilers: coach Bill Fountain (top); middle row Pete Fox, Ellis Hall, George Chacona, Harold Peterson and John Foley; bottom row Earl Bolton and Russell Detar

District champs:

100ish years ago

I stand corrected.

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For years I believed – and told anyone who would listen – that Oil City never won a district championship in boys basketball.

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I found out differently this week.

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The first state championship tournament was in 1920 with one class – “A.” There were eight teams, but “districts” as we know them were not designated. The list of participants included one school that is located in this area – northwestern Pennsylvania. That would be Farrell.

The next year, in 1921, Oil City was the only northwestern Pa. team; the year after that it was Franklin. READ ON

1922 Franklin Nurserymen: (back row) coach Bob Atticks, Richard Kirker, Ralph Buck and student manager Paul Dwyer; front row, Clark Wolfkiel, Theodore Fry, Eddie Stewart, King Richardson and Harry Snider.

4 District 10 titles

It's easy to overlook, but Oil City coach Dan York actually has four District 10 titles -- the last three with the Oilers and in 2013 with Lakeview.

Coach of the Year

Franklin grad Blane Gold was named District 9 Coach of the Year by D9and10Sports. com and later by the Pennsylvania Scholastic Football Coaches Association after guiding Redbank Valley to the district Class A title this season. He is 14-5 in his first two years as coach.

Six state crowns

Tiger LaVerde' s Kirtland, Ohio, team won the Class V

state championship, 38-0, over Ironton on Nov. 21. 

It is the sixth state crown -- and third in a row -- for Kirtland under LaVerde, 

a 1991 OCHS grad and a former Franklin coach.

He now has 205 career coaching victories.

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The Hornets finished the season with an 11-0 record and have won 41 straight games.

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Cover Boy

Oil City's Mario Fontanazza graced the cover of this year's football tab published Sept. 11 by The Derrick/The News-Herald. Fontanazza anchored an offensive line -- the Oilers' bread and butter -- that this year included Jayson Weilacher, Seth Yeager, Lucas DeGroat, soph Cam Crocker and A.J. Angros. Fontanazza was a four-year starter on the offensive and defensive lines.

Front Page News

Ashlee Douglass was the subject of a front page feature by Judy Etzel that appeared in the Oct. 2, 2020, edition of The Derrick and The News-Herald. Douglass, listed as a senior tackle for Oil City, has played football since her Little Driller days. She performed on the scout and special teams for the Oilers. The story can be found under the Stuff That Was in the Paper link.

Franklin grad

Fiorentino honored

by Westminster

Franklin graduate Nick Fiorentino has been named to Westminster's all-decade team in football as an offensive lineman.

As a senior in 2014, he helped the Titans rank third in the conference in rishing (207 ypg) and produced their first 1,000 yard rusher in 10 years.

Fiorentino and another FHS grad, Jason Frawley, were also named to the Titans all-decade team in track, both as throwers.

Fiorentino, who played football at 6-4, 290, was more decorated as a track athlete with five Presidents Athletic Conference MVP awards. His 47-1 throw in the weights in 2016 still stands as the school record. He won PAC gold medals in all four throwing events, competing in both indoor and outdoor track, during his career.

Frawley, who graduated in 2014, won the outdoor shot and discus and helped the Titans to PAC team titles from 2011-13.

Ian Quarles competed in the discus for the FHS track team when he attended school there in the late 1980s.

The late Julian "Butch" Conrad poses with his wife, Jane, at the FHS old-timers bash in 2005. Conrad is a nephew of Ted Marchibroda.

Does he or doesn't he? 

We'll still probably never know

Update as of Dec. 30: Red Law is over 2,000 career yards rushing -- and still counting.

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As I said on Dec. 17 in this space, I'm not convinced that Ian Quarles is Franklin's all-time leading rusher with the 3,089 yards he accumulated in his two years with the Knights in 1988 and 1989.

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Zak Lynn (2015) with 2,108 yards and Sean Saunders (2005) with 1,867 were 2-3 all-time behind Quarles. Lynn is still second, but Law has moved into third with 2,009 after I filtered through game stories from 1963-65 -- his freshman through junior seasons. First, I visited newspaperarchives.com and then, lately,  newspapers.com. 

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While I found about 400 more yards for Law, I had no luck with Butch Conrad's sophomore season in 1957. Conrad has 1,923 career yards, but much of his earlier yardage is missing. News-Heralds wouldn't come up for the fall of '57 on newspapers.com.

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As for Law there are still 2,270 yards that are unaccounted for from 1963-65, down from 2,670. Unaccounted for yards in '57 is still 523. 

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As I said, I put an asterisk next to Quarles' career mark -- I'm even more convinced that Law does indeed hold the record. But, we'll still probably never know. At least he's over that 2,000 mark.  Would be nice to see Conrad over 2,000, but I'll have to wait for the libraries to reopen to find out.

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Both Law and Conrad played in an era when scribes didn't always report individual totals; there are exceptions, such as Conrad's junior and senior seasons rushing totals. The only stat for Law was the 897 yards he ran for his senior year, compliments of former coach Joe Stewart.

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A guy named Bud Henderson was sports editor of The News-Herald back then -- until about midway through the 1966 season when the late Jack Mays took over. Henderson had some very nice things to say about Law -- but rarely a yard. In early 1964 he reported Law was the leading ground-gainer in 1963...but he didn't say how many! Grrrr.  (The Knights also had senior Chuck Holland that season, and he had a big game vs. Townville in the finale -- 226 yards. That was mentioned, thankfully.)

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Henderson also said, "There probably has never been a better two-way performer at FHS than Law."

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Paul "Red" Law excelled not only in football, but in basketball and track for the Knights in the mid-1960s.