Nov 28, 2023 5 min read

By Luke Campbell

For the Observer-Reporter

The preparations for the Christmas season are well underway as cold weather sweeps through the area making it feel like the heart of winter.

Christmas trees complement the lights being hung and decorations being draped outside of homes and businesses.

Take a drive through McDonald and you will see red and white everywhere you turn. Not in holiday decorations, but in old, white bed sheets that read anything from “Let’s go Rangers” to “Ranger Nation” in red spray paint.

Don’t get me wrong, the town seems to be anticipating the Christmas season. But McDonald is wrapped up in a different season … the Fort Cherry football season, as the Rangers continue their magical, undefeated ride into December for the first time ever.

Bed sheets hang from the local barbershop to a mini-mart to local bars to anywhere one can spread their support of the Rangers, who won their first WPIAL championship last Friday over South Side Beaver, 42-28, in the Class A title game at Acrisure Stadium.

“You just run out of that tunnel (at Acrisure) and saw a sea of red,” Fort Cherry coach Tanner Garry said. “People sitting in those stands that have played or followed Fort Cherry. People that have grown up here and still live here. We had basically a parade coming home from our semifinal game. That one Friday was for the community.”

Now, the Rangers are in unchartered waters with being in a true state playoff game for the first time in school history. Technically, the district championship game is a part of the state bracket. Fort Cherry (14-0) travels to Farrell High School Friday to play District 9 champion Redbank Valley (12-1).

Kickoff is 7 p.m.

The winner advances to play either South Williamsport or Steelton Highspire in the PIAA Class A Championship the following Thursday.

But Garry has proudly carried family lineage with the Fort Cherry football program to take a full-circle journey and tackled challenges to restore the pride of a team that didn’t even win a game in 2019, the year before he took over at his alma mater.

“To be honest, I have this natural thing where all these good things are going to happen but always wonder what is going to be coming over the hill,” Garry admits. “A lot of good has been going on. It’s overwhelming at times with all the emotions. I guess it’s just human nature to always start wondering at what is next. It’s surreal at certain points. Like, is this really happening?”

But it’s not only been a story that has come full circle for Garry, who remembers his time growing up as a ball boy for the Rangers as his grandfather and father coached. Then playing there as a high schooler. It has been exorcising a lot of demons for the entire Fort Cherry coaching staff.

Assistant Scott Wharton lost in the first round to Jefferson-Morgan in his senior season in 2006. Garry’s grandfather and father lost to perennial power Rochester in the 2001 WPIAL Championship, the last time the Rangers were in a title game. Tanner and his cousin, Corey, who is on staff, had two seasons end at the hands of Bishop Canevin in the postseason. Another assistant, Lou Ryan, lost to South Side Beaver in the 1999 semifinals.

Maybe fitting – and most definitely ironic – the Rangers postseason run to a first ever WPIAL championship went through Jefferson-Morgan in the first round, then Rochester, Bishop Canevin and finally South Side Beaver.

“Maybe one of the big downfalls of our staff is that we are a very superstitious group of people,” Garry said. “I guess in some way, shape or form, we all conquered our own boogeymen. It has been storybook.”

Now, to make sure that book has more has a few more chapters, Garry and his staff prepare for an unfamiliar opponent two hours away that they know very little about outside of some film study.

“One of the hardest parts is even though you can turn on the film and get an idea, you don’t know about the teams they are playing,” Garry said. “What kind of size and talent do they have? You can say, ‘well, this kid looks like a good player, or this player looks physical.’ You can look at rosters but can’t always trust that.”

One thing Garry can probably count on is needing the Rangers’ defense slow down a potent Redbank Valley passing attack that features two 1,000-yard receivers in Ashton Kahle and Mason Clouse. Sophomore quarterback Braylon Wagner returned to the lineup last Friday for the first time since suffering an injury Oct. 27. In last week’s 44-0 win over Cambridge Springs, Wagner threw for 203 yards and four touchdowns, all in the first half.

“You are at the point in the year where you have to believe in what you do and force your opponent stop it,” Garry said. “One thing we always preach is there is one physical team and a team that’s more physical. We can control that. The X’s and O’s will then fall into place.”