Fort Hill's Mikey Allen wins Offensive Player of the Year

Mar. 8, 2023
by Alex Rychwalski

CUMBERLAND — Fort Hill head coach Zack Alkire wasn’t quite sure what he was getting when Mikey Allen came to Fort Hill in August.

He knew the senior, who spent the past three years playing for the Bishop Walsh Elite team, was going to provide athleticism in a much-needed area in the secondary. What he didn’t know, however, is how much of an impact he would give on the other side of the ball.

Allen developed into the best all-purpose player in the area, racking up more than 1,700 yards and 19 touchdowns as a key player in Fort Hill’s ninth state championship season.

It came as no surprise that Allen was the pick for Offensive Player of the Year by the area’s head coaches.

“Mikey comes over, spent three years playing basketball, decided to come back for his senior year and had an immediate impact,” Alkire said. “We don’t have the success we have without him coming over here. ... Him winning this award is big for him, and it’s big for us.”

Allen won a tightly-contested race that saw six players receive at least one vote.

Allen received three votes to edge out teammate Tavin Willis and East Hardy quarterback Mason Miller, who notched two votes each. Allegany’s Cayden Bratton, Mountain Ridge’s Jaden Lee and Petersburg’s Peyton Day — all running backs — nabbed one vote apiece.

In his lone year at Fort Hill, Allen rushed for 945 yards and 13 touchdowns on 87 carries, caught 14 passes for 240 yards and three scores, racked up 483 return yards and returned one for a touchdown, and he intercepted four passes for 83 yards, taking two back to the house.

Despite the gaudy numbers, it was a work in progress as the season wore on.

Allen burst onto the scene against Northern with 139 yards and two touchdowns on just two carries, taking one 89 yards to pay-dirt, but he was still raw after having not played football since leading the Patriots to the Cumberland Area Youth Football League crown as an eighth-grader.

“He had those big two runs at Northern, and that was just him being faster and more athletic than everyone else,” Alkire said. “It looked like he was an older middle school kid in terms of his gameplay.”

With all the athletic gifts necessary to become a Division 1 running back, Allen had to focus on the mental side of the game. Understanding what defenses were trying to do to stop the Sentinels, and understanding what Fort Hill was trying to do to counteract that.

Allen’s breakout performance came against Oakdale in Week 5. Fort Hill scorched the Class 3A runner-ups 49-21, and Allen carried the ball 11 times for 169 yards and two touchdowns.

He even provided the exclamation point on defense, intercepting quarterback Evan Austin, who has a host of Power 5 offers, and returned the pick for a touchdown as the Bears were rallying in the fourth quarter.

“He’s a kid that spent a lot of time paying attention, and working on details of his game,” Alkire said. “You could see that as the season progressed, he began to pick things up and understand things better. He began to understand the scheme, what he had to do and what we needed to do. That allowed him to become a better player the second half of the season.”

Some may have anticipated Allen to shy away from contact after coming over from Bishop Walsh after not playing football for four years, but the senior ran over defenders and battled for extra yards.

There were also questions as to how the Sentinels would manage the workload of three high-level backs, as Allen joined a backfield that already contained All-Area performers Tavin Willis and Tanner Wertz.

Allen ended up being the lone member of that trio to not top 1,000 rushing yards. Willis finished with 1,030 and 17 touchdowns on the ground, and Wertz accumulated 1,007 yards and 10 scores.

Fort Hill made it work on its way to a second consecutive state title. Fittingly, in the Sentinels’ 16-14 win in Annapolis over Mountain Ridge in the final game of the season, all three backs rushed for at least 50 yards and nobody topped 100.

“You had three guys that could’ve carried the ball every single time for another team,” Alkire said. “We didn’t have anyone that had huge numbers this year because we spread it out.

“It was a thin line we had to tightrope with those guys. We wanted to keep everybody happy. For the most part we did.”

Allen’s progress paid off, drawing a Division 1 scholarship offer from Southern Utah, which is headed by former Frostburg State coach DeLane Fitzgerald.

Last March, Allen became a staple of Cumberland sports legend by guiding Bishop Walsh to its first two-win Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament in history, drilling a pair of buzzer-beating 3-pointers at the 60th edition of the tourney.

This year, Allen and the Fort Hill basketball team are still alive in the state playoffs. The Sentinels are set to take on Edmondson in the state semifinals today — their first trip to that stage since 2008.

Allen set the Fort Hill record for single-season 3-pointers this year with 93 makes and counting.