Nowhere to go but up for Ringgold
Holly Tonini/For the Observer-Reporter
Ringgold’s football team will try to push back after a winless 2018 season.
By Holly Tonini/For the Observer-Reporter
First-year Ringgold High School football coach Darwin Manges talks to his team after a practice.
MONONGAHELA – A mere 27 points scored.
Not in one quarter. Or in one game.
Those 27 points were the entirety of the Ringgold High School football team’s scoring output all of last season.
Yet, first-year head coach Darwin Manges isn’t worried about points.
“I’m not worried about scoring this year. We will put points on the scoreboard,” Manges confidently said.
A 1985 graduate of Ringgold, Manges’ motivation is simple. It’s to turn Ringgold back into what it used to be – an annual playoff qualifier.
“The expectation is to be playing Ram football again,” he said.
It was anything but that throughout 2018 for Ringgold. Three separate coaching searches led to the late hire of former Aliquippa coach Mike Zmijanac. A little over six months after taking the job, Zmijanac, one of the winningest coaches in WPIAL history, left without a victory.
Zmijanac is about to begin his first season as coach at Seton LaSalle.
But the uphill battle for Manges has gotten off to a solid start since being hired in late January. Numbers in offseason workouts have remained at more than 40 and the foundation and groundwork for the program have been built.
“The turnout has been fantastic. The commitment has been fantastic,” Manges said. “Since Feb. 1, the kids have been in the weight room four and five days a week. They have done everything we’ve asked but there is a lot of catching up to do.”
Having some varsity experience can’t hurt, either. Entering last season, nobody on Ringgold’s roster had rushed for more than three yards in a varsity game or had more than three receptions or completed a pass.
This year, Jacob Duncan returns at quarterback, Deondre Dotson, Colton Mckown and John Polefko are in the backfield and a host of wide receivers will scatter the field in what is expected to be a spread offense for the Rams.
“We will spread people out, stretch the defense vertically and put the ball on the edge,” Manges said. “Being a north and south team will depend on how we mature up front. The maturation process and seeing how much they are able to handle will determine how quickly we can get moving forward.”
Underclassmen Dante Compagni and Jordan Meyer will lead both lines of scrimmage.
Junior Clayton Rosensteel will handle the kicking and punting duties. Rosensteel was Ringgold’s only player to be named to the Big Eight all-conference team. He was named second-team punter.
Manges said the most important things the Rams will continue to work on is spacing and alignment, something they’ve had a difficult time doing with construction being done to the track at Joe Montana Stadium.
Manges spent the past several years as the athletic director and dean of students at Delmar High School in Delaware. Before that, he was the head coach at Christiana and Dover high schools, also both in Delaware, and had two stints as an assistant at Wesley College, a Division III school in Delaware that plays in the Atlantic East Conference.
A chance to come back and coach at his alma mater, one with a strong tradition in football, was one Manges couldn’t pass up.
“I couldn’t be happier,” Manges said. “I knew in my heart this is where I would end up. The last 27 years in Delaware was productive and I had a lot of good years. I’m truly blessed with this opportunity and don’t take it lightly. As a team, we just have to do what we can do to the best of our ability.”