Nov 27, 2015 4 min read

South Fayette and Aliquippa are no strangers to making history.

The Lions’ current streak of dominance has included back-to-back WPIAL and PIAA championships and a 44-game winning streak – the fourth-longest in the nation. Aliquippa, meanwhile, is the gold standard for high school football in Wesyern Pennsylvania.

Despite a small enrollment, the Quips have produced dozens of Division I athletes and many NFL players. The program has appeared in a WPIAL-record nine consecutive championship games and has won a total of 15 titles.

Success unites the two programs and they will make history together today. It will be the first time in WPIAL history that two schools will meet in the finals in three consecutive seasons when South Fayette (12-0) and Aliquippa (12-0) play for the Class AA championship at Heinz Field. Kickoff is 5 p.m.

The Lions defeated the Quips 31-22 last November. Two years ago, Brett Brumbaugh’s fourth-quarter touchdown pass gave South Fayette a six-point victory. The Liosn and Quips also met in the 2010 title game, when South Fayette won 19-6.

“We’re playing the team in the green across the way who, regardless of what they’ve done in the past few years, is still undefeated, a terrific football team and a terrific program,” Aliquippa head coach Mike Zmijanac said. “We have a different team. They’re different kids, too. It’s a different situation.”

That different situation includes a first-year South Fayette quarterback, the dominant play of Quips running back Kaezon Pugh and the pressure of maintianing the third-longest winning streak in WPIAL history.

Like the previous two meetings, the Lions will focus on stopping Aliquippa’s running game. Pugh, who is expected to play linebacker at Pitt next season, has 604 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns in three playoff games. The 6-2, 215-pound senior has 1,830 yards this season with 27 touchdowns.

Pugh will match up against South Fayette’s defense, which has held opponents to 2.8 yards per rush and is led by a stout line that excelled against Aliquippa’s larger linemen last year. Pugh did not get a carry against the Lions in 2013, but he ran for 110 yards in last year’s title game.

“He’s bigger, stronger and faster than last year,” South Fayette head coach Joe Rossi said of Pugh. “He’s the real deal. Pitt is getting a good one. He’s going to be a tremendous college player. We just have to get him to slow his feet down a little bit like we challenged our kids to do the last couple of years. We can’t let him get rolling. If he gets rolling it can get scary.”

That’s not the only challenge the Lions face. Aliquippa senior quarterback Sheldon Jeter has completed 57 percent of his passes for 1,243 yards and 17 touchdowns.

The Quips’ pro-style offense with two tight ends is much different than Steel Valley’s, which gave the Lions trouble in the semifinals. Unlike the Ironmen, who spread out South Fayette and relied on their quick linemen to create running lanes, Aliquippa looks much like its teams of the past – hard-nosed football with an emphasis on the running game and a tough defense.

Though the Quips don’t have to worry about Brumbaugh, his replacement will keep the Quips’ defense from stacking the tackle box to stop senior running back Hunter Hayes. Sophomore Drew Saxton has thrown for almost 1,600 yards and 27 touchdowns. He has connected with a pair of receivers who gave the Quips trouble last year at Heinz Field. Junior Dan Trimbur, who had a 13-yard touchdown catch in the first quarter last November, has 504 receiving yards with a team-high 10 touchdowns.

“They’re good,” Zmijanac said. “You don’t win 40-some games in a row without being good. It’s a great rivalry now. Unfortunately we’ve been on the short end of it lately. Rivalries are born out of two teams being good. You don’t have a rivalry if one team stinks.”

Success has placed South Fayette in a familiar position. While all but seven other WPIAL teams enjoyed Thanksgiving morning at home, the Lions continued their annual holiday tradition with a morning practice, McDonald’s and the underclassmen singing Christmas carols.

The previous two Thanksgivings were spent preparing for the state playoffs, but another run toward Hershey won’t be possible if the Lions can’t get past their rival.

“We wouldn’t want to see anybody else and I know neither would they,” Rossi said. “You look at the brackets and you look at them across the way and that’s who you want to play. Our kids enjoy playing them and they enjoy playing us. It’s become a nice rivalry.”