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Hankins, Mussina QBs in East-West All-Stars

Williamsport's Isaiah Hankins is off to IUP in the fall.

Williamsport's Isaiah Hankins is off to IUP in the fall.

Brycen Mussina of Montoursville will play at Lafayette in the fall.Isaiah Hankins and Brycen Mussina never played football against each other. But they sure did compete hard against each other.

The Williamsport and Mon­toursville quarterbacks shattered program records over the last three years and helped their teams win championships while earning all-state honors last fall. The whole time, they were keeping an eye on the other. Each one wanted to top the other and make his claim as the area’s best quarterback.

Now the competition has temporarily ceased. Hankins and Mussina are teammates. And maybe it is the way they pushed each other that has made them the lone quarterbacks representing the West team in Sunday’s Pennsylvania Scholastic Football Coaches Association East-West all-star game at Altoona’s Mansion Park.

“For it to only be me and Isaiah representing half of our state is a pretty cool thing,” Mussina said. “There are so many quarterbacks and so many good ones that I wasn’t sure if I could get a spot.”

Hankins and Mussina both earned their spots by having some of the best seasons in District 4 history. Hankins totaled 8,097 yards and 93 touchdowns in three years as Williamsport’s starter. This past season he earned Class 6A all-state honors, completing 69.3 percent of his passes for 2,560 yards and 27 touchdowns while throwing just four interceptions as Williamsport went 12-2 and won its first district championship since 1995.

The IUP-bound quarterback broke Berwick legend Ron Pow­lus’s Wyoming Valley Conference career touchdown pass record (64), ran for 919 yards and 14 touchdowns last season and is one of only four area quarterbacks who has ever topped 6,000 career passing yards. Mussina is one of the others. And you better believe Hankins knows all about Mussina after studying the boxscores the last three seasons.

“Brycen was always completion for me throughout my high school career,” Hankins said. “Reading the paper on Saturday morning I always looked for his name to try to compare stats.”

Hankins and Mussina seemingly were playing a game of try and top this throughout high school. While Hankins was breaking records at Williamsport, Mussina was doing so at Montoursville, leading it to three straight district finals and two district champion­ships. The Lafayette-bound quarterback broke both the district touchdown pass (69) and yardage (6,966) records during his scholastic career and essentially owns every Montoursville passing record there is.

“Hearing about Brycen Mus­sina do the things he did with Montoursville week in and week out always made me think about what kind of prospect he was,” Williamsport all-state athlete and West member Elliott Walker said. “Now seeing the types of throws he can make and how he picks defenses apart makes me excited to get the opportunity for him to be my teammate for one game.”

Mussina, like Hankins, made his best season his final one, throwing for an area record 2,866 yards and 30 touchdowns. Mussina threw at least one touchdown pass in his first 12 games, went over 2,000 yards for a second time in three years and helped Montoursville win 10 games. He threw for more than 1,800 yards in each three of his seasons starting.

Hankins might have something to do with that. These two brought out the best in each other and the results were historic.

“Since we both got the opportunity to play as sophomores, he has always been someone that I have tried to one-up,” Mussina said. “When I would hear about Williamsport, I would always ask how many he threw for and if they won. We still wish we could’ve played each other at least once. “

Though it’s a different sport Hankins and Mussina did once go head to head. Hankins beat Mussina by one in an eighth-grade 3-point contest at Curtin Middle School. The quarterback competition is a draw, but Hankins secured some bragging rights that night.

“I haven’t forgotten about it,” Mussina said. “Besides some teasing about numbers, though, it was a quiet competition between us throughout the past three years.”

It was a competition that made Hankins and Mussina two of the best in area history. And the way they competed each other has brought Hankins and Mussina together at last.

“He’s a great person and quarterback and it’s been great getting to know him on a personal level,” Hankins said. “It’s great to be on the same side as him.”

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