High School category, Page 571

When the clock struck zeroes in the fourth quarter of his team’s WPIAL Class A playoff loss to Cornell, Monessen coach Wade Brown noticed something surprising: Several of his players were crying. An outpouring of emotion isn’t unusual in the wake of a crucial loss. Brown, however, wasn’t sure his...

Xander LeFebvre has a cool name. Sounds like an action movie star or maybe a linemate of Mario Lemieux during his junior hockey days. But how many local high school football fans are familiar with that name, even though he’s a four-year starter who threw for 1,000 yards for a...

Second-year coach Fran Ramsden has a tool he plans to use to liberally to help his Riverside team turn things around after a 1-8 season. Data. Ramsden is a believer in the idea that certain parts of the game correlate most directly with winning: explosive plays of 20 yards or...

New Brighton’s Tony Caltury speaks highly of Beaver County football, and there are a few really good reasons for that. First, he is the county’s newest head coach, taking the reins from Joe Greco, the program’s all-time wins leader who stepped down after last season. Second, he has previously been...

Rumor has it a major repaving project has been planned for Mitchell Road in Neshannock this fall. Over the last year or so, there have been so many championship parades in front of the high school that the traffic pattern has worn grooves in the pavement. OK, no such rumors...

After a successful season that included a third-place finish in the Midwestern Athletic Conference and a first-round WPIAL playoff victory, Mohawk comes into this year with a strong, veteran line and some inexperience at the skill positions. Coach Tim McCutcheon isn’t complaining. No, really. He isn’t. Like, at all. He’d...

After three coaching changes in the previous four years, the Freedom football team was looking to establish some stability last season. With athletic director John Rosa stepping in as head coach, did the Bulldogs do that? Yes. But they were one quarter away from making that a “yes” in all...

Looking to turn its program around after three consecutive winless seasons, it’s hard to imagine Ellwood City could have found a coach more suited for the job than Dan Bradley. In 2015, Bradley took over an Our Lady of the Sacred Heart program that was coming off an 0-9 season....

The immense challenge WPIAL defensive coordinators have faced when taking on Beaver Falls over the last couple of seasons can be summed up in two tidy stats. In 2020, the Tigers had the WPIAL’s leading rusher — Josh Hough with 2,051 yards. In 2021, the Tigers had the district’s second-leading...

Acrisure or bust. That is the Birdie’s slogan for the 2022 season. He wants to be back on the big stage. “Penn-Trafford, Belle Vernon, I’m looking at you,” the bullish prep prognosticator said as he prepared his season-opening remarks. “You can take the Heinz out of that stadium, but you...

In one sense, WPIAL Class 2A football looks radically different this season. Four conferences have been consolidated into three with the total number of teams in the class dropping from 27 to 23. Nine of the 27 teams that played 2A football in the WPIAL last season moved out. That...

At its zenith, the highest classification in the WPIAL, then called Quad-A, had 28 teams in the early 2000s. That number stayed steady over the next decade-plus and was at 25 teams for the 2014 and 2015 seasons. Expansion to six classifications has steadily shrunk 6A, which started with 14...

A changing of the guard in WPIAL Class 3A football will occur in 2022 and Belle Vernon, a Class 4A finalist last year, is favored to be the top team to replace three-time WPIAL champion Central Valley. That’s because Central Valley is moving up to Class 4A after dominating Class...

Bishop Canevin does not have a lot of players who might be considered NCAA Division I prospects — at least not according to the feedback from college coaches. “We’re kind of on that (5-foot-9) threshold,” Crusaders coach Richard Johnson said. “There are a lot of D-3 schools interested but not...

High schools WPIAL Football Saturday’s scrimmages Penn Hills at North Allegheny, 9:30 a.m. Pine-Richland at Mt. Lebanon, 10 a.m. Seneca Valley at Cathedral Prep, 11 a.m. Central Catholic at McKeesport, 9 a.m. West Allegheny at Canon-McMillan, 10 a.m. Fox Chapel at Hempfield, 10 a.m. South Fayette at Woodland Hills, 10...

High school football teams deploy a variety of offensive schemes, from no-huddle spreads to the wing-T. What do they all have in common? Five offensive linemen. No matter what strategy a coach might dream up, it’s not going far without a good line. Look at last year’s WPIAL champions and...

As Tim Burchett and the new coaching staff at Knoch install a new offense, plans are to build around Jake Murphy. Murphy, a senior, was a first-team Greater Allegheny Conference inside linebacker last year and a second-team tight end. But this season, Murphy will be moving into a slot receiver...

Ligonier Valley football coach Roger Beitel is now the elder statesman of coaches in Westmoreland County with the retirement of Jeannette’s Roy Hall. But during practice, he allows the players to play different genres of music as background noise. Entering his 19th year as coach at the school, Beitel might...

It is becoming a tradition, just like the committee had hoped. The Moe Rosenteel Player of the Year Award, given to the best all-around girls soccer player in the WPIAL since 2019, is now in its fourth year and a new winner will be crowned later in the fall. The...

Watching the Yough football program fall into disrepair was a cringe-worthy endeavor for proud alum Ben Hoffer, who used to shed tacklers and score touchdowns with ease when he played on Cougar Mountain. The new coach has big plans for his alma mater — “big” being a relative term. He...

It’s hard to imagine a more satisfying regular season than the one Steel Valley had last year. The Ironmen rolled through four nonconference opponents and five Allegheny Conference foes to the tune of a 9-0 record with an aggregate score of 333-50. Star tailback Nijhay Burt led the WPIAL with...

Roger Beitel begins his 19th year as head football coach at Ligonier Valley, and he hopes the 2022 season isn’t as bizarre as 2021. The fact that Ligonier Valley finished 8-3 and made the WPIAL Class 2A playoffs for the first time is amazing with the amount of injuries the...

Producing a winning football program at Imani Christian isn’t an impossible dream. Coach LaRoi Johnson knows it because he was there in 2017. The Saints finished a point away from grabbing the WPIAL Class A crown from eventual state champion Jeannette. Things have changed since Johnson, who was the offensive...

With a new coach on board, Derry has been repositioned in Class 2A, drastically altering recent schedules. No disrespect to the current opponents, but dropping down just might suit the Trojans better after several fruitless seasons in Class 3A. Among last year’s opponents, only Burrell, Class 4A Latrobe and Class...

After several years in Class 3A, Burrell made the move down a classification in the new two-year cycle. Coach Shawn Liotta said his team is getting ramped up for the season and is excited for its potential in its new conference. “There are a lot of new challenges for us...