Lehighton’s Hunsicker, Northwestern’s Holmes both selected to Pennsylvania Football Writers Class 4A All-State Team
Two area players were selected for the Pennsylvania Football Writer’s Class 4A Team on Wednesday.
Lehighton wide receiver Zach Hunsicker, and Northwestern Lehigh’s Justin Holmes, were both selected for their offensive performances during the fall season.
As a senior, Hunsicker set all-time school records with 114 catches and 1,732 yards receiving for his four seasons and was named to the team as a wide receiver. Hunsicker increased his production each year, finishing with career highs in receptions (49), receiving yards (765) and touchdowns (5).
“Zach is quite a story,” said Lehighton coach Tom McCarroll. “When he was a freshman, we knew he had a lot of talent, but he really leaned toward playing basketball. Even though basketball was his focus, he put in a lot of hard work and became a better football player. After that, it seemed that he was more interested in football.”
Pulling in just three catches in his freshman season, Hunsicker worked his way onto the field for more action as a sophomore and finished the season with 27 catches, three of which were for touchdowns.
When featured receiver Zach Crum graduated following the 2018 season, Hunsicker became the go-to guy for Lehighton over the past two seasons, with 84 catches and over 1,200 yards receiving and eight touchdown catches in that time.
“Zach has always been very hard working and very coachable,” remarked McCarroll. “He had natural talent, so much of the work that he had to put in was just on learning the nuances of being a wide receiver, and he worked hard at learning those things. At the end of the season, we always tell the guys what they need to work on for the next season, and Zach was the kind of kid that always came back the next year having improved at what we wanted him to work on.”
While he was given accolades for his performance on offense, Hunsicker has also played well at defensive back, and colleges have shown interest in him on both sides of the ball.
Hunsicker is still undecided about where he wants to go to college.
At Northwestern Lehigh, coach Josh Snyder had to fill a gaping hole at quarterback by opening another hole at wide receiver this past season. With Deven Bollinger moving on to the University of Delaware, Snyder made the decision to move Bollinger’s top target, Justin Holmes, to the quarterback position.
The move worked well as Holmes got over some early jitters and made strides each time out as the Tigers’ quarterback.
“We had some guys that we thought could fill in at receiver, and we felt that Justin had the talent to play quarterback, and that his ability to run with the ball would be a definite asset to the team,” said Snyder. “He really worked at learning the little things, and didn’t hang his head when he got off to a rough start in the opener. He just came in the next week and worked even harder, and each week he was a better player.”
Rather than add Holmes to the All-State Team as a quarterback, the writers looked at his ability to run and plugged him into the ‘offensive athlete’ position. Holmes went over the 1,000-yard mark in rushing and over the 1,400-yard mark in passing this season for Northwestern while using his legs and arm to amass 31 touchdowns.
Like Hunsicker, offense wasn’t the only contribution that Holmes made to his team this past season.
“He was rarely off the field for us,” Snyder said of his junior all-star. “He was strong on defense, and he was also our primary punt returner and our primary kick returner. Whatever we asked him to do, he was willing to take on the task and do it as well as he possibly could.”
Both McCarroll and Snyder thought their players had a good shot at being named to the All-State Team, but both also conceded that there are a lot of talented players across the commonwealth, so nothing was going to be handed to them.
“I couldn’t say that Zach was a shoo-in,” admitted McCarroll. “Even when you just look across District 11, there are a lot of really good receivers, and some of them put up unbelievable numbers even though it was a shortened season. I do believe that Zack deserves the honor, especially when you look at his body of work. He worked hard to get to where he’s at.”
“I think when you look at Justin’s numbers, you realize he’s one of the better players around, but there are a lot of quality players around the state.” said Snyder. “When you get to see him play each week, though, you really start to realize just how important he is to the team, and when you’re around him at practice and see his commitment and how hard he works, you understand why he’s an all-state caliber player.”