Haverford

By DILLON FRIDAY

Special to the Times

HAVERFORD — Haverford High coach Joe Gallagher sat at his desk, pondering the question with a quizzical look on his face.

“We’ve had a lot of back-to-back winning seasons,” he said. The leader of the Fords for 22 years listed off the high points of his career going back to the early 1990s, before settling on a conclusion.

“I don’t know if we’ve ever had four in a row.”

That is what’s at stake for Haverford in 2014. The Fords have strung together three consecutive winning seasons, including an 8-3 mark a year ago that was capped by a Thanksgiving Day win over rival Upper Darby. Now Haverford is going for an unprecedented, at least in the Gallagher era, fourth straight winning campaign.

“That would be excellent,” the long-time coach said in his office following a morning practice. “That’s where we want to be.”

Reaching that goal won’t be easy. Sixteen starters graduated from last year’s team. The running back duo of Jai Thornton and Kevin Leyden, who combined for 1,413 yards on the ground a season ago, will be particularly hard to replace.

“It’s a big chewer,” Gallagher said, as only he can, of the questions surrounding the Fords’ running game.

For now, ball-carrying duties will be split between seniors John Kim and Kevin Maloney, both of whom earned touches in 2013. Neither is as physically gifted as Thornton or Leyden, but they make up for a lack of size — Kim stands 5-10, while Maloney measures in at 5-9 — with football intelligence. They find the holes and hit them.

“I think it’s important that we block well,” Maloney said. “We run jet a lot. It’s a big part of our offense. We need to block out, be able to get the edge, run hard, run fast. We have to take it one play at a time, get four or five yards. We’re not going to be getting 30-yard carries.”

Kim offered a similar sentiment.

“Neither of us is going to be as fast as Kev or Jai,” he said, “so we’re just going to move the sticks little by little if we can.”

The offensive line is quite green as well. Only two starters return from 2013.

The man under center, though, is a seasoned veteran as a junior. Jack Donaghy will start at quarterback for the second straight season. He holds the keys to Haverford’s success.

“He’s just a natural leader,” Gallagher said of Donaghy. “He takes command. He adds that element that is so important to the position. And he’s physically maturing.”

“He gets better every week,” the coach continued. An assistant within earshot corrected him: “Every day.” Gallagher nodded in agreement. “He gets better every day.”

Donaghy started all of last year as a sophomore and even made a cameo on the varsity team as a freshman. In 2012, the Fords lost senior quarterback Eddie Durkin to a broken hand in the first half of a District One Class AAAA playoff loss to Central Bucks South. Donaghy started the second half and then led the Fords to a win over Upper Darby on Thanksgiving.

“He played in a playoff game as a ninth-grader,” Gallagher boasted. “His maturity and progression has been something to watch.”

That experience has earned the respect of some of Donaghy’s elders. The seniors, if Mahoney and Kim are to be believed, trust him with the ball.

“Even being a younger guy, he’s still got some presence to him,” Mahoney said. “He leads pretty well. He’s got command of the huddle when he’s out there — just what you’re looking for in a quarterback.”

Gallagher knows there’s a fine line between a successful campaign and a losing one, especially in the Central League. His team won eight of its last nine games in 2013. But an early loss to Penncrest ultimately sealed the Fords’ playoffs fate.

“We can’t lose games that we should win. Like Penncrest last year,” Gallagher said. “We’ve put two really good years together. We finished second in the Central League two years in a row. I want us to take pride in that. That’s our attitude — maintain success we’ve had. Build consistency.

“That’s challenging.”

And it doesn’t get any easier in 2014. The Fords open with 2013 Ches-Mont champion Downingtown West at home.