GROVE CITY — At this time two years ago, Grove City High head football coach Sam Mowrey and his team had just concluded a disappointing 1-9 season following a 2-8 campaign in 2014.

Two years. Three wins. Seventeen losses.

And a lot of questions and soul searching.

“I think I'd be lying if I said there weren't some sleepless nights,” Mowrey said. “There was a lot of, 'Are we doing the right thing?'”

Senior offensive and defensive lineman Logan Minch, a sophomore then, had similar thoughts.

“Of course, you despair a little bit,” Minch said.

But there were promises made and promises kept.

“The coaches promised us if we worked hard things would get better,” Minch said.

And they did.

It seemed sudden on the outside looking in, but inside the Grove City program, there was a quiet confidence that things would turn around.

The Eagles rolled off nine straight wins to begin the 2016 campaign and quickly put those two years of toil and struggles to rest.

Since that dubious start to his head coaching career after serving as an assistant coach at Grove City for a decade under Jeff Bell, Mowrey and his Eagles are 20-2 and will play nemesis Meadville Saturday for a District 10 5A championship.

“Those first two years, they were rough, no sugarcoating it,” Minch said. “But we stuck to the process and stuck to our core values of sacrificing for each other.”

There isn't one reason why things just started to click for the Eagles, but a series of little ones that added up to a radical change in direction.

Minch credited a rededication to the weight room as a reason why things rapidly got better.

He also said the players finally settled in with a new coach and a new offense.

Mowrey also changed.

He scaled back some elements of the offense and tailored the attack to his player's strengths.

It wasn't always an easy thing to do.

“The tendency when you begin is always to do a lot of different things because you are excited. But you have to be good at what you do, pick the things you are good at and do those things or you won't excel at anything,” Mowrey said. “Our philosophy as a coach really started to take shape. We sat down and said, 'here are the things we do well' and we practiced them until we couldn't mess them up.”

Grove City hasn't messed much up the last two seasons, even when losing quarterback Kameron Patterson and tight end AJ Turner after last season.

Patterson threw for 2,671 yards and 32 touchdowns and Turner had 1,011 receiving yards and 16 touchdowns in 2016.

Last year ended with two losses to Meadville, the last one in the D-10 title game.

Brady Callahan has filled in admirably at quarterback this season and the diverse offense has made up for Turner's loss.

“It's hard to find your identity again when you lose some kids and lose a lot of leadership,” Minch said. “But we were able to do it.”

Mowrey, in many ways, has had a mirror start to his coaching career as that of his predecessor, Bell.

Bell also started his coaching career slowly, but had a dramatic turnaround. Bell's team reached the state title game in 2004 and was a perennial District 10 power for more than a decade.

“Jeff is still a great friend,” Mowrey said. “I remember a conversation I had with him toward the end of his reign. I told him I would be an assistant for him forever. There was no where else I wanted to go. I still go to him for advice.”

Mowrey, who played quarterback in high school at Titusville and then played at Grove City College, was a defensive coach for much of his time under Bell.

He always kept his eyes on the offense, however.

“He's an evil genius,” Minch said, laughing.

Minch said Mowrey is one of the big reasons why this team has had such success over the last two seasons.

Mowrey started a leadership program at the school that includes offseason activities to build better character and bonds among the players.

There's also an in-depth process of picking team captains.

“We thought being a team captain is something you should have to earn,” Mowrey said.

“It's just an amazing program,” Minch said. “It gets all the kids involved and you learn how to be a man. You learn not everything is going to go our way, and it's how you respond that matters.”

Minch is definitely one of Mowrey's biggest fans.

“He's just so charismatic. He's a cool dude,” Minch said. “It's not often you get an Xs-and-Os coach who's also a rah-rah, player's coach. He's both and we're lucky to have him.”

Grove City would like nothing more than to win another District 10 championship Saturday and put the exclamation point on its turnaround.

If the Eagles do, it would be their first district crown since 2011.

“We're writing our own story,” said senior running back Trey Adams. “We want to go down as one of the teams that won the District 10 title. We want that to be our legacy.”