Shenandoah to celebrate ’75, ’58 victories over Mt. Carmel at Mahanoy game
PHOTO COURTESY / NEWSPAPERS.COM
SHENANDOAH – It’s one of the most storied upsets in coal region football history, and it’s set to be commemorated where it all happened, almost 50 years to the day.
Under the lights on Halloween night in 1975, the Shenandoah Valley Blue Devils hosted the Mount Carmel Area Red Tornadoes for the penultimate time at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
The Devils hadn’t been able to knock off the powerhouse in their annual meetings for nearly two decades, not since the 1958 matchup when the Devils silenced the Silver Bowl with a 26-0 victory. From 1935 to 1977, Shenandoah won only six times.
In the Nov. 1, 1975 edition of the Shenandoah Evening Herald, Sam Matta quipped that SV wins over Mt. Carmel “seem to come as often as Haleys Comet.”
Entering the 1975 matchup, Mount Carmel was 7-1. Shenandoah was 2-4-1.
The Devils were but a blip on Mount Carmel’s radar. The Shamokin News-Item wrote that “Mount Carmel Area is rated a likely winner in Friday’s game with Shenandoah Valley” in a preview published on Oct. 30, 1975, and the Sunbury Daily Item surmised that “the Red Tornadoes will wallop Shenandoah and clear the decks for the Nov. 7 home game with Shikellamy.”
Mount Carmel was locked in a four-way battle for the Eastern Conference Southern Division. Shamokin led, trailed by Shikellamy. The two teams faced off on Halloween night and the winner likely controlled their own destiny. But, Berwick and Mount Carmel were in toe, not yet eliminated.
“A lot of people are looking ahead to the Shikellamy game, but we have to play Shenandoah first,” Mount Carmel coach Joe Diminick told the News-Item. “The Shenandoah game is all I’m concerned about this week.”
“If you can’t remember Shenandoah ever beating Mount Carmel, that’s probably because the Blue Devils don’t accomplish that feat very often,” the News-Item wrote on Oct. 19, 1975.
Even a panel of writers from our hometown Evening Herald thought Mount Carmel would take it. Guy Bonomo was the only one at the Herald, and, the paper surmised, “the only writer east of the Alamo who picked Shenandoah Valley to beat Mount Carmel.” More on that in a moment.
Cue the Halloween nightmare for the Red Tornadoes.
“The Blue Devils definitely came to win,” The News-Item reported on Nov. 1, 1975. “Once they smelled upset, the Devils were unbeatable.”
Coach Paul Petrucka, though, was just delivering on a promise made as he took over coaching duties at Shenandoah Valley.
The Devils downed Mount Carmel 26-15 and, after the game, Petrucka and his squad piled on a Shenandoah Valley school bus and lapped the town.
It was Mount Carmel’s second loss of the season and knocked them out of contention for Eastern Conference honors.
“The entire Eastern Conference was rumbling when the scores started to pile in,” Sam Matta wrote in the Herald on Nov. 1. “Only the expert football pickers could call it a hoax on this Halloween Night, for pranksters do like to pull a stunt or so. Ah, why not call and make the Blue Devils a winner. It wasn’t necessary. Shenandoah Valley was for real.”
“I knew the kids could do it,” a misty-eyed Petrucka told the Herald. “I kept telling them all week we could beat this team and they did.”
The Herald wrote that folks throughout the Anthracite area called radio stations asking if it wasn’t a Halloween prank as people stood on roofs of cars on Main Street, waving, screaming, and celebrating the Devils’ victory.
Bonomo, the Herald writer who predicted a Blue Devil win, echoed the same. “They’re just a great bunch of kids and I couldn’t be happier for them. I picked them because I believed they would win.”
Legendary Shenandoah sportswriter Babe Conroy was matter of fact about the game.
“Forget the crap about Mt. Carmel looking ahead, because for 16 years, the Tornadoes looked right at Shenandoah and beat the Devils every year,” he wrote. “This year, the plain and simple truth is Shenandoah Valley kicked Mount Carmel’s butt. Congratulations to the butt-kickers.”
Conroy hoped the game could become a rallying cry for later Devils’ squads, saying “Hey, remember what we did in ’75,” as “highly touted squads invade Shenandoah for combat.”
Celebration set
This victory, and the 1958 shellacking at the Silver Bowl, will be commemorated this year as Shenandoah Valley hosts their archrival Mahanoy Area Golden Bears on Friday, Oct. 24.
It’s been 13 years since Shenandoah’s hoisted the Damato-Szematowicz Trophy — not quite 17 years, but long enough that a Sentinel photographer has never captured the sight.
Organizers of the commemoration tell the Sentinel the school is welcoming back former players, coaches, staff, cheerleaders, band members, classmates, friends, and fans from both the 1975 and 1958 victories over Mount Carmel to remember and celebrate the wins.
The 1958 contest, organizers say, ended with Shenandoah coming out on top 25-0 in front of 15,000 plus fans at Mount Carmel’s Silver Bowl in a game that attracted attention from around the state. That team is widely considered one of Shenandoah’s finest, finishing at 9-2.
Representatives from the 1975 team and the 1958 team and their supporters from the SV Class of 1976 and the Shenandoah High Class of 1959 will be recognized on the field at halftime.
Immediately following the game, participants in the program along with all family members, friends, fans, and supporters are invited to a post game get together which will be held at the nearby Columbia Hose and Fire Company from 8:30pm to 11:30pm.
One can surely surmise they’ll hope for the same sort of magic to strike again that night as in 1975 and 1958.
Mount Carmel Area’s student television station has film of the game archived on their YouTube channel.
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