Remembering the Miracle on the Mon

Many things tie together fans of a club, but some of the deepest are the shared moments of lore.

Pittsburgh’s teams all have those moments — not championship moments, necessarily, but the sort of moments that imprint lasting, emotional memories in fans, particularly those in attendance.

Bill Mazeroski’s home run to win the 1960 World Series for the Pirates was so momentous that, for decades, it seemed you could find a half million Pittsburghers who claimed to have been there at Forbes Field, despite the stadium holding fewer than 37,000.

The Steelers, of course, had the Immaculate Reception at Three Rivers Stadium. Fans of the Penguins, who oddly have won all five of their championships on the road, still recall witnessing Mario Lemieux’s heralded return from retirement on home ice. Pirates fans generations too late for Mazeroski still share fond memories of the 2013 Wild Card game and Cincinnati Reds pitcher Johnny Cueto dropping the ball.

For Riverhounds fans, that moment is the Miracle on the Mon, which occurred nine years ago on May 30, 2015.

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The story of the Miracle on the Mon has been told many times over, including in a halftime feature produced last year to celebrate Highmark Stadium’s 10th anniversary. 

Trailing by three goals at halftime to the rival Harrisburg City Islanders, and again falling behind 5-3 in the 86th minute after a Garret Pettis goal, the Hounds rallied for a most improbable 6-5 victory with goals by Danny Earls in the 90th minute and Rob Vincent and Kevin Kerr in stoppage time.

But as remarkable as the comeback was, it’s hard to rate it any longer as the team’s biggest home win, not with a 7-0 playoff victory over Birmingham in 2019 and a Round of 16 Open Cup win over the Columbus Crew last season now in the books.

Understanding the reason Miracle on the Mon holds its lasting appeal for longtime Hounds fans — even with “bigger” achievements since then — requires the added context of a tumultuous time in club history.

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Entering the 2015 season, the outlook was not the brightest around the Hounds.

Two years earlier, the team celebrated the opening of their first true home, Highmark Stadium. The inaugural season provided some welcome high notes, hosting FA Cup winners Wigan Athletic in a friendly, striker José Angulo winning the Golden Boot and reaching the postseason with their first winning record in three years.

But the wheels came off in 2014. 

Even with an increased payroll from the previous season, the team failed to win in its first 10 league matches and finished 11th out of 14 in USL Pro. More worrisome was the club entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy while attendance declined in the second year at Highmark, the latter no doubt connected to the on-field struggles.

That made 2015 a pivotal year for the Hounds. The team emerged from bankruptcy on stronger footing with Tuffy Shallenberger holding sole ownership, and one of his first big moves was hiring veteran coach Mark Steffens, a two-time title-winner with the Charlotte Eagles.

But eight matches into the season, the Hounds had just two wins, and their season needed a spark. Things began to turn with a 2-1 road win on May 23 over a playoff-quality Richmond Kickers team, and on May 27, a wonder strike by Vincent sent the Hounds into the Fourth Round of the Open Cup by beating the Tampa Bay Rowdies, 1-0.

Barely more than 1,000 fans were there for the midweek Open Cup win, however, so the weekend’s meeting with Harrisburg in front of a crowd much closer to the stadium’s old seating capacity of 3,500 provided a much better chance to show the fans things were back on track.

It almost didn’t happen, of course. Yann Ekra, Danny DiPrima and Jose Barril had the Hounds in a 3-0 hole after 38 minutes, and the malaise of the previous season seemed to be lingering. Vincent and Amara Soumah pulled it back to 3-2 early in the second half, Jason Plumhoff made it 4-2 to Harrisburg, and Earls’ first of the match made it 4-3 before Pettis’ apparent back-breaker.

What happened over the next 10 minutes is best explained in terms of emotion. Spirits in the stadium turned from bleak to boisterous. The “Woo-hoo!” shouted by analyst Paul Child on the broadcast summed it up perfectly. And without it, it’s possible the 2015 season — and with it, longer-term interest in the club — doesn’t continue its ascent.

Kerr’s shirt-shedding celebration after touching home the winning goal seemed to be more than about taking three points against a rival. It was almost as if he was stripping off the hardship of the team’s past year and celebrating an exciting new start.

It’s for that reason the Miracle on the Mon still holds its importance in Riverhounds’ history.

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No, the Miracle on the Mon didn’t propel the 2015 Hounds to a championship. But then again, neither did the Immaculate Reception for the 1972 Steelers, or the 2013 Wild Card win for the Pirates.

What the game did was create a touchstone moment for supporters of the Hounds — those that had been with the team when it was barnstorming high school stadiums, and those who had only recently discovered the club when Highmark Stadium opened.

And just like the four Super Bowl wins in the next seven seasons after the Immaculate Reception hasn’t diminished the emotional impact of that unlikely victory — now more than 50 years ago — it’s likely that whatever major wins and championships lie in the Hounds’ future will never erase that first emotionally charged moment, the Miracle on the Mon, from memories of Riverhounds lore.