Leechburg-Clairton football game to be moved, fans barred amid fallout from hayride shooting

Leechburg’s varsity football team will host Clairton on Friday instead of traveling to the Mon Valley school as originally scheduled, and no fans will be allowed in the stadium, the districts said.

“It’s directly related to the unresolved crime in the community, the Haunted Hills Hayride shooting,” Clairton Superintendent Ginny Hunt said of the joint decision by the districts to move the game and bar fans.

It is the second WPIAL football game to be affected by Saturday’s shooting at a North Versailles haunted hayride in which a 15-year-old was killed and another teen was critically wounded. Fans will not be allowed, and security will be increased at Friday’s Woodland Hills-Penn Hills high school football game amid concerns over what officials called “unresolved feelings and emotions.”

In a letter sent Thursday to Leechburg Area School District families, Superintendent Tiffany Nix said, “When I am told that safety cannot be guaranteed for our players and our coaches in Clairton, it was an easy decision to move the game. … We are simply brought into this by timing of tragic events and our football schedule.”

The districts said there will be no fans, cheerleaders or bands at the Leechburg-Clairton game.

“Only football players, coaches and necessary game day workers will be permitted in,” officials said.

“If the game stayed at our opponent’s field, there were going to be no fans permitted, either. This is what is best for the game to proceed this week and what is best for our players.”

The Leechburg-Clairton game is scheduled for 7 p.m. and will be livestreamed on the TribLive High School Sports Network for anyone who can’t be in attendance.

Please be advised;
Under an abundance of caution we have reached an agreement with Leechburg for them to host the football game on Friday, 9/17. Only the football players will be participating and attending.

— Clairton School (@Clairtonschool) September 16, 2021

Steve Eason, a Central Catholic High School student from Wilkinsburg, died in the hayride shooting. The wounded teen, who has not been identified, is a student at Penn Hills.

Police said Eason had been with a group of friends who knew the other teen. When Eason saw the other teen involved in a confrontation, Eason and his friends tried to help, police said.

The shooting suspect, believed to be a teen, fired a handgun three times and then ran. No arrests have been made.