New Castle, Butler renewal rivalry to open season
Written: Sep 03, 2010
  By JOE SAGER
News Correspondent
Optimism surrounds the New Castle High football team.
While the Red Hurricane graduated some key parts from last year’s 8-3 team, a bevy of talented players return from the squad that advanced to the WPIAL Class AAA quarterfinals.
That has allowed New Castle to focus on a significant goal this season — capturing a district championship.
“Anytime you come back with some experience and guys who played quite a bit and had some success, the expectations are always a little higher,” New Castle coach Frank Bongivengo Jr. said. “We want them to be a little further along than they were at this point last year. We want them to reach a higher goal. That’s the way the kids feel. The ultimate goal is a WPIAL championship. But, that goes one game at a time.”
The ’Canes’ journey begins at 7:30 p.m. Friday when New Castle opens its season with a nonconference battle against old Quad North rival Butler at Taggart Stadium.
“The kids are looking forward to it. It was a long summer, a long offseason. The kids get bored and the coaches get bored, but it’s a necessary evil. They now know in their head that it all counts. Everything counts now,” Bongivengo said. “Butler has been a longstanding rivalry and we’ve been fortunate over the past couple of years to renew that. The kids are excited for that. Plus, it’s the first game of the year and at home, so they are really looking forward to it.”
The Golden Tornado is looking forward to it as well as Jim Rankin will make his Butler coaching debut. The veteran gridiron boss, who spent eight years guiding Ellwood City Lincoln, enjoyed a successful 18-year run as North Allegheny’s head coach (144-62-2). He guided the Tigers to the WPIAL title game four times and won WPIAL and PIAA gold in 1990.
He stepped down at North Allegheny in 2004 and spent time as an assistant at Carnegie Mellon, Jeannette and Latrobe since then. He has an overall 181-105-3 coaching record in 26 years.
“He has done a great job everywhere he has been, as far as coaching goes,” Bongivengo said. “We have watched some tapes from their scrimmages and we see they are well-coached and well-disciplined. We’re sure coach Rankin will have them ready to go. They will be looking forward to beating us and opening up with a win.”
Butler’s program has struggled. The Quad-A Tornado has reached the playoffs once in the past 16 years (1998) despite having the WPIAL’s largest enrollment. The program hasn’t had a winning season since 1997 and has gone 3-26 over the past three seasons — including an 0-9 mark last fall.
“It’s good to be with the high school kids again,” said Rankin, a member of the Pennsylvania High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame. “This is an exciting game for Butler. The kids are buying into what we have to say. We just want to see if we can get better. Hopefully, we’ll be at a point where we are very competitive with everyone that’s good. Hopefully, it’ll be (Friday).”
Rankin’s troops have had to adapt quickly. They battled WPIAL preseason contender Woodland Hills in their first scrimmage and took on Blackhawk in their second. After the season opener at New Castle, the Tornado visits Rankin’s old stomping grounds at North Allegheny.
“Our first two games, we have two pretty good teams. It’s a good test for us,” Rankin said. “We played Woodland Hills the first scrimmage and, defensively, we didn’t do badly. All in all, we’re going to have played four well-coached teams in our first four weeks, including scrimmages. It’ll give us a gauge of how well we are doing or where our improvement can be.”
However, Rankin is not looking past New Castle, which posted a 20-14 win at Butler last year.
“We’re going to have to be very careful. New Castle is a very fast team. I just see their personnel and they are excellent. The defense swarms to the ball and they are very fast,” Rankin said. “Their receivers are very good; they have two or three running backs that are very good. Their offensive is explosive. Their quarterback is very experienced and does a real nice job with the spread offense.
“We can’t turn the ball over. We have to get some turnovers. That first game, to have foolish penalties that put you in bad spots would be disastrous,” he continued. “The big thing, I think, is not letting them have a big play. They are a big-play team. We need to surround the ball and move the ball and score some points, but, really, trying to keep it out of their hands would be a good idea for us. We just have to play good fundamental football and see where it falls.”
The ’Canes hope to limit their mistakes, too, especially to open the season.
“We really stress the fundamentals and doing things the way we’re taught. If we do that, we’ll be OK,” Bongivengo said. “But, if we get away and lose our composure a bit, that’s when bad things start to happen. That’s when teams take advantage of you. Hopefully, we’ll be focused.”
In addition, New Castle will have to contend with Rankin’s Wing-T offense.
“Coach Rankin has run a Wing-T for a long time. They’ll try to beat you up physically and come at you and confuse you with motion,” Bongivengo said. “They work really well off play action from what we saw in the scrimmages. The play action has been very effective.
“One thing we’re stressing on defense is for the kids to read their keys and trust what they see,” he continued. “We really, really worked hard at that. Hopefully, our kids bear down, read their keys and trust what they are seeing. If they don’t and they look at the backfield and at all the action, their receivers will get behind us and that’s one thing we don’t want.”
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