High School category, Page 49

Jayce Powell has been stealing scenes in Jeannette football games since he broke into the starting lineup as a freshman. Deep routes, posts, seam shots, catch-and-runs. He’s done it all. Last year, he broke through. He grabbed 57 receptions for 1,023 yards and 10 touchdowns, averaging a brow-raising 17.9 yards...

TribLive HSSN will break down the top players at one position per day until Week Zero. Here is a look at the top tight ends for the 2025 season. 1. TJ Sabatucci Canon-McMillan Senior, 6-2, 225 Sabatucci was voted a first-team all-conference tight end in Class 6A two years in...

Drew Ross is comfortable sitting in the pocket, surveying the field and delivering a strike to any one of several receiving targets in Freeport’s passing game. He also is ready to have his number called and use his feet to get yardage and move the sticks. Defensively, he’s set to...

Valley coach Mark Adams would be the first to agree that the Vikings had a disappointing 2024 season. Valley was winless, with its closest loss being a crushing 38-35 defeat to Riverview in its second game. However, Adams would also agree that Valley can turn the program around because of...

When asked about his team’s goals for the season, Imani Christian coach LaRoi Johnson said the team wants to win a state championship. It is a short response, yet it sufficiently describes what the Saints have been working toward since their 14-6 defeat against Avonworth in the WPIAL Class 3A...

Highlands was one quarter away from a trip to last year’s WPIAL Class 3A semifinals. The Golden Rams led No. 1 Imani Christian by nine at the end of the third quarter, but the Saints erupted in the fourth and raced past Highlands for a 31-17 win. While that heartbreaking...

The Freeport football team returned to form in 2024. After a 2023 season that saw the Yellowjackets win just three games and suffer a rare playoff miss, last year’s team grew and learned from its tough fortunes, finished third in a strong Allegheny 7 Conference and returned to the WPIAL...

East Allegheny wishes it could forget that awful record, but the returning players and coaches won’t. Besides, they really can’t. One win and nine losses. “We went 1-9 last season,” Wildcats coach Frank Cortazzo lamented. “We don’t want to do that again.” Frankly, who would? “It’s sort of been the...

The Deer Lakes football program has forged a culture of winning the past couple of years, which has resulted in trips to the WPIAL playoffs and a great deal of excitement among many in the Lancers athletic community. Tim Burk, Deer Lakes’ eighth-year head coach, said the team members gearing...

Winds of change swept through the Burrell football program in the offseason. Shawn Liotta, the Bucs coach for seven seasons who led the program to three WPIAL playoff appearances during his tenure, stepped down in December to enter the Arena Football coaching ranks. Dom Girardi, quite familiar with high school...

High schools Golf Tuesday’s results Boys Class 3A Section 3 Seneca Valley 182, Butler 185 Medalists: Anthony Cardozi, Marcos Lopez (SV) 34; Bowden Lenyk (B) 35 Section 5 Peters Township 185, Canon-McMillan 192 Medalists: Camden Reyes (PT) 35; Jon Taczak (CM) 37 Class 2A Section 3 Jefferson-Morgan 215, Brownsville 262...

While we continue to prepare for the new high school football season, Countdown to Kickoff 2025 looks back at the 2024 WPIAL football season. Conference champs First, here is a rundown of all the regular season conference champions from last fall: 6A – Central Catholic 5A Allegheny Six – Upper...

There’s been a big addition to the Latrobe football team. Emphasis on “big.” Rob Young is a sight to see. The senior is every bit of 6-foot-7 and 240 pounds, a man-among-boys newcomer who could be a gamechanger for the Wildcats. So how did a former City League kid end...

Fox Chapel coach Dave Leasure is clear about what it will take for the Foxes to continue their progression as a program. If Fox Chapel wants to challenge for a WPIAL Class 5A playoff spot out of the Northeast Conference, they will have to be better defensively. “Fox Chapel has...

Quarterback Anthony Smith can be on the field for Seton LaSalle at a football scrimmage this weekend, a judge ruled Tuesday. But his ability to play the rest of his sophomore season is up in the air. He remains ineligible when the season starts in two weeks after the PIAA...

Having just started her final season of high school golf, and after years of evaluating her options as a top player in the state, Elizabeth Forward’s Mya Morgan found her fit as she committed to Central Michigan to continue her academic and athletic careers. The decision has been a long...

Something is in the air at North Catholic. Returning the WPIAL’s leading passer and receiver from a late-surging playoff team, the Trojans are poised to take another step forward. “We kind of expect to pick up where we left off,” coach Chris Rizzo said, “just with probably a little bit...

First-year coach Tom Eshenbaugh is looking to restore the Quaker Valley football program to the land of respectability. And the mending process begins now. The crown jewel for QV football was the 2017 season when the Quakers won their first and only WPIAL and PIAA Class 3A championships and finished...

After being a perennial Class 2A playoff contender, McGuffey received a rude welcome in its move to 3A football last season. The Highlanders went winless, including an 0-6 mark in a strong Western Hills Conference featuring eventual WPIAL champion and state runner-up Avonworth. “We were in a tough situation,” said...

The Hopewell Vikings are hungry to bring winning football back to the community. Hopewell has had eight consecutive seasons under .500 and hasn’t made the playoffs since 2012. Last season, first-year coach Matt Mottes and the Vikings took a step in the right direction. The Vikings went 4-6 and Mottes...

A year ago, Central Valley coach Mark Lyons felt that his team had what it would take to return to Acrisure Stadium, a place the Warriors have become all-too-familiar with over the last 15 years. Early on, a harsh reality smacked the veteran and talent-rich Warriors in the face with...

Beaver is the ninth on the WPIAL all-time wins list and is the fourth-oldest football program in the district, starting in 1899. Beaver has a winning culture. Coach Cort Rowse hasn’t missed the playoffs since taking over in 2021. Rowse took home Western Hills Conference coach of the year honors...

Editor’s note: Trib HSSN will publish team-by-team previews for one conference per day until the start of the high school football season Aug. 22. There’s been a bit of a sour mood lurking in the Avonworth camp, where the Antelopes play. They almost won it all in 2024, but close...

Jack Kopas was elected a team captain this year at Hempfield, a reflection of his breakout junior season and, perhaps more over, his noticeable growth as a player and teammate. “There’s no way the coaches would have seen me as a (future) captain when I was a sophomore,” the senior...

TribLive HSSN will break down the top players at one position per day until Week Zero. Here is a look at the top wide receivers for the 2025 season. 1. Khalil Taylor Pine-Richland Junior, 6-0, 180 College recruiting outlets rate Taylor as one of the top junior wideouts in the...