Final week of football’s best season
Admit it, we have been spoiled when it comes to high school football.
Over the many years that the sport has been played in this corner of the state, we have seen future NFL players – some who went on to become Pro Football Hall of Famers – begin their playing careers on the high school fields of Washington and Greene counties. Those same fields were home to future NFL head coaches, a Super Bowl Most Valuable Player, key contributors on NCAA championship teams, a national high school player of the year, many WPIAL team champions and one PIAA champion.
There have been some good years, too. Those have included seasons when multiple local teams won WPIAL championships or played for a district title, some of those games being held in professional and college venues like Acrisure Stadium, Three Rivers Stadium, Pitt Stadium or Forbes Field.
Those players, teams and games that have become legendary in the local area are enough to make high school athletes and fans in many other parts of the state jealous. We are fortunate to have produced so many outstanding players and teams.
There have been many good years, too. And one can make a rock-solid case that 2023 will go down as the best season of high school football ever played in the O-R’s coverage area. Three local schools – two from Washington County and one from across the Monongahela in Westmoreland County – won WPIAL championships. That kind of success had never before come in threes to this area. In addition, Belle Vernon’s Quinton Martin is rated the top high school recruit in Pennsylvania by both 24/7 Sports and Rivals.com. That kind of national recognition hasn’t been centered on a local player since Washington’s Brian Davis in the mid-1980s.
Martin and Fort Cherry sophomore quarterback Matt Sieg have been so heavily wooed by Penn State that Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin made recruiting stops – via helicopter, no less — at both Belle Vernon and Fort Cherry during one Friday gameday this season.
The final chapter in this remarkable 2023 high school football season will be played out over three days, beginning Thursday, at Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg, where the PIAA will hold its championship games. Fort Cherry (15-0) will play defending champion Steelton-Highspire (15-0) in the Class A final Thursday afternoon. On Friday night, Peters Township (15-0) will face Imhotep Charter (14-0) for the Class 5A championship. On Saturday afternoon, Belle Vernon (12-1) will try to make it back-to-back state titles when it plays Northwestern Lehigh (15-0) in the Class 3A title game.
XX The men’s basketball team at California is off to a 6-0 start under head coach Danny Sancomb. It’s Cal’s best start since winning their first 10 games in the 2003-04 season.
What makes the 6-0 start even more impressive is all six wins have come on the road. The Vulcans will not play their first home game until Sunday when they host Chestnut Hill. That game (1 p.m. tipoff) will be played at Hamer Hall because of graduation ceremonies Saturday at the Convocation Center.
The Vulcans received a bit of good news Tuesday as they were ranked No. 24 in this week’s NCAA Division II poll. It’s the first time in at least 15 years that Cal’s basketball team has been nationally ranked.
Sports editor Chris Dugan can be reached at dugan@observer-reporter.com