ANNAPOLIS — The room was quiet at the start of Mountain Ridge’s postgame presser and hearts were heavy following a third defeat in Annapolis in as many years.
There were no smiles and no fanfare, and there were no other journalists from other newspapers, online sites or social media platforms — several of which followed behind a jovial Fort Hill, riding high after a 45-21 triumph that secured an eighth Class 1A state championship in 10 years, when the Sentinels entered the press conference room minutes later.
The crestfallen aura matched that of the last two, and, while it may not seem like it now for Mountain Ridge’s players, coaches and fanbase, three straight state championship losses is no reason to hang your head.
It’s a reason to hold your head high, and it’s a major accomplishment.
The lone holdover from those three press conference’s was its fiery coach Ryan Patterson. The eighth-year head man was focused on the here and now after Saturday’s contest, but whether he’s realized it yet or not, he’s the architect of one of the greatest three-year runs in area history.
That may seem like an exaggeration, but it’s far from it.
With an 11-2 finish this season, Mountain Ridge is 34-5 over its past three campaigns, ending 12-1 and 11-2 the prior two campaigns.
In the history of area football in Allegany, Garrett, Mineral and Hampshire counties, only Fort Hill has ever had three 10-win seasons in a row (Moorefield and East Hardy also have achieved the feat in West Virginia’s Class A).
That’s somewhat of a deceiving statistic given the addition of more games thanks to ever-expanding playoff systems in Maryland and West Virginia — however, it’s still a rarely matched period of success.
To put everything in perspective, here’s the last time each area school has lost five or fewer games in a three-year stretch:
Allegany, 2005-07, 36-4Beall, 1993-95, 32-4Fort Hill, 2021-23, 38-1Frankfort, 1995-97, 28-4Keyser, 1968-70, 25-5Moorefield, 2001-03, 35-5Southern, 1987-89, 29-5
Northern, Petersburg and Hampshire, while all having periods of success, have never lost five or fewer games in a three-year run, nor did Valley, Bruce or Westmar.
Mountain Ridge also compares favorably to the legendary pre-playoff teams in Allegany County, losing just two regular-season contests in the past three campaigns (the postseason began in Maryland in 1973).
Expectations are warped due to Fort Hill’s ridiculous 130-7 win-loss record since the start of the 2013 season, but that doesn’t make Mountain Ridge’s last three seasons any less historic.
This Mountain Ridge team’s title game run is arguably the most impressive of the three.
The 2022 Miners will go down as one of the all-time greats after starting the season 12-0 — including a 30-8 triumph over Fort Hill — before a narrow 16-14 defeat to the Sentinels in the title game.
That star-studded team lost its quarterback and Area Player of the Year Leuma Pua’auli, Division 1 lineman Peyton Miller (now at UMass) and four other starters up front, one of the area’s leading tacklers in linebacker Hunter Clise, two-time first-team All-Area back Jaden Lee, and interior defensive linemen Jaden Rosales and Jacob Tinsley among a host of other standouts.
It’s not normal to replace all that and finish 11-2 the following season for anybody not named Fort Hill.
“They were counted out from the beginning,” Patterson said after Saturday’s game. “We lost a lot of the core group that had us down here the last two years.
“These guys, I’ll never forget them, their hard work all offseason. We may not be the most talented team that you’ll ever find, but these guys worked as hard as any group you’ll ever find. We’ll always love them for that.”
The size and talent disparity in the trenches and in the backfield Saturday was evident even to the most untrained eyes, and that makes Mountain Ridge’s ability to get back to Annapolis even more impressive.
It helped having an elite quarterback in Will Patterson to take the reins from Pua’auli, and he’ll almost assuredly be the area’s first-team quarterback after racking up more than 2,700 yards and 40 total touchdowns.
“The family that we have here is great. I’ve just loved every second of it,” said the star quarterback.
The senior was the third in a line of QB royalty in Frostburg, as Pua’auli threw for more touchdowns in a season than anyone in area history a year after Bryce Snyder tied the area record with 29 aerial scores on his way to winning Offensive Player of the Year.
For all that’s went right for Mountain Ridge over these past three years, it’s almost cruel that the Miners had just one year of Patterson and Pua’auli under center — or, more accurately, in the shotgun in the school’s spread offense.
Mountain Ridge’s future is uncertain after losing the game-breaking ability of Patterson at quarterback, though sophomore Cobe Penick, who led the junior varsity squad, is the likely pick going forward.
What isn’t uncertain, however, is that the groundwork has been laid and the culture of winning has been established.
The excitement in the Frostburg and George’s Creek areas has been obvious at lower levels.
“It’s grown the numbers in our younger programs. They can’t get shoulder pads for some of the kids,” said senior Andrew Ketterman, who snagged a 73-yard touchdown pass in Saturday’s title bout.
For what the 2023 Mountain Ridge team may have lacked in natural athletic ability, it more than made up for it with the sense of family that Patterson referenced.
Its 15 seniors fought tooth and nail to uphold the expectation set forth by the community and by their predecessors, and they got their reward getting back to the state championship game.
“We’ve been playing together forever,” said senior wideout David Miller, who had more than 400 receiving yards and six touchdowns on the year.
“We lost a lot of people last year, and we had new seniors and stuff, so we had to push each other all offseason, 6 a.m. lifts, just practice hard every day.”
The 2024 Miners will have to work even harder next season to return to Annapolis.
They’ll keep their nose to the grindstone because they have to and because they want to.
Those boys in the press conference Saturday were downtrodden because they expected more of themselves, as did their community.
That’s what winning does.
Mountain Ridge has done a lot of it.