If this season taught anything to Spring Grove High's football team, it's that hard work brings results.

That's why often during the 2009 campaign, Rockets head coach Gregg Trone referred to his team as a group of "blue-collar players."

The season's finish in the District 3 Class AAAA playoffs, in which Spring Grove (6-5) eventually lost to No. 3 seed Central Dauphin, only proved the point.

"We had a good season and we're not going to let losing to a great football team like that deter what we accomplished," Trone said.

The Rockets, young in several skill positions this year, made a vast improvement by doubling their win count from last year en route to the postseason.

Junior Neil Grudi made the biggest jump, replacing Ian Smith at quarterback. But the athletic signal-caller hardly had any trouble early in the season, leading the Rockets to an opening 3-0 mark.

He finished the year 62-for-146 passing for 1,267 yards, 10 touchdowns and 15 interceptions. He had seven games of more than 100 yards passing. Perhaps his best game came in a 40-23 loss to Red Lion when he threw for 180 yards and two touchdowns.

By the final four weeks of the season, Trone saw a confident quarterback, one that took the position by the horns and made it his own.

"Neil Grudi has grown tremendously the past four weeks he's been at quarterback," Trone said. "His leadership skills on field (have been good). He's matured."

But the junior doesn't deserve all of the

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credit, not when this team was more a "win by committee" collection.

Senior running back Bobby Bailey led the charge between the pipes, scoring 10 touchdowns on 649 yards rushing.

Junior receiver-cornerback-placekicker Ben Reigart was the Rockets' most productive three-way player, catching 20 balls for 450 yards and two touchdowns, intercepting four passes and nailing six field goals and 24 extra points.

"It's a great advantage (to have)," Trone said after a Week 3 win over Biglerville. "Inside the 35-yard line, we know we're going to kick for three."

The defense was solid for better parts of the season, producing two shutouts over the Canners (31-0) and York High (28-0) while limiting teams to an average of 17 points per game all year.

Cortlin Dell was a big reason as the player had 138 tackles on the season. Jesse Meckley added 112, Max Ruby had 79 putdowns and seven sacks and Drew Tiehel finished with 85 tackles on the year.

After starting the year 3-0, the Rockets went through a rough patch, losing their next three games against YAIAA Division I competition. Central York (28-0), Red Lion (40-23) and South Western (21-0) gave Spring Grove perspective.

That's when the Rockets rebounded with two big wins over New Oxford (14-7 in overtime) and York (28-0) before a 13-7 setback to Dallastown preceded a 48-19 demolishing of Dover.

"We'll hope for next year," Trone said. "We have a lot of kids coming back. And, just like I told the kids here, this is how we ended this season, but let's springboard for next season and be back."

cmull@eveningsun.com