High school notebook: Wash High grad has OLSH in playoffs
Two things are near certainties when Dan Bradley coaches a football team. The first is the team will have success and, second, the quarterback will throw for a bevy of yards and touchdowns.
Bradley, a 1988 graduate of Washington High School, has led Our Lady of the Sacred Heart to its first football conference championship. The Chargers finished in a tie with Rochester for first-place in the Class A Big Seven Conference but earned the top spot because of a victory over the Rams.
Bradley is in his second season at the school and helped the team advanced to the playoffs for the first time last season.
OLSH started its football program in 2010, after having been in a cooperative agreement with Cornell.
The Chargers are 8-2 this season, after losing their first two games of the season.
In six seasons as a head coach, Bradley has a 46-19 record (.708 winning percentage). He also coached two years at Sto-Rox, where he led the Vikings to consecutive WPIAL Class A runner-up finishes, and two years at Ambridge, where he guided the team to the Class AAA playoffs in 2015.
Leading the way for OLSH is sophomore quarterback Tyler Bradley, the coach’s son. He has completed 159 of 225 passes (70.7 percent) with 2,242 yards, 25 touchdowns and five interceptions.
“He’s playing well,” the elder Bradley said. “We like to throw the ball and he is coming along.”
The second-year coach said injuries forced the team to makes some adjustments heading into the season.
“In Class A, replacing starters isn’t like being in larger classifications,” Bradley said.
“You can’t just plug people in. We had to think about moving people around to different spots that helped us overall. It took a while to get adjusted.”
OLSH has won eight straight after consecutive losses to South Side Beaver and Northgate in the opening two weeks. The Chargers host Springdale in the first round of the playoffs Friday night. If OLSH wins, it will play either Imani Christian, the No. 4 seed, or Sto-Rox in the quarterfinals.
Imani eliminated OLSH last season, 44-13, in the opening round.
In addition to being a head coach, Bradley was an assistant coach at Sto-Rox, Seneca Valley and South Fayette. He was an assistant coach in 2010 when South Fayette won the WPIAL Class AA title.
Championship
or bust
Wash High will host Freedom Friday night and the Little Prexies roll into the postseason looking for that elusive Class AA championship.
Since advancing to the WPIAL championship game in 2012, the Prexies have experienced playoff frustration, losing in the semifinals in two of the past three seasons.
But Wash High is the No. 2 seed and seems primed to make a title run. Steel Valley, the defending PIAA and WPIAL champion, is the top seed.
The Little Prexies have advanced to the WPIAL semifinals 13 times, the first in 1973.
Wash High won five consecutive semifinal games (1990, 1993, 1995, 1998 and 1999) and won in 2001, and again in 2012.
Overall, the Little Prexies are 7-6 in the semifinals.
Extra points
Trinity meets nemesis Thomas Jefferson in the Class 4A quarterfinals Friday in Pleasant Hills.
The Hillers have lost 12 consecutive games to Thomas Jefferson dating back to 2006.
Trinity’s last wins over the Jaguars were in 1986 and 1987.
In the past 12 games, Trinity has scored more than seven points twice and has been shut out five times, including a 35-0 decision during this regular season.
Thomas Jefferson has scored at least 28 points in its last dozen games against the Hillers.
- The last time West Greene, which plays Friday at Rochester, won a playoff game was in the 1993 Class A semifinals over Farrell at Trinity’s Hiller Field.
It also is the last time the Pioneers made the playoffs.
Led by then-coach Larry Piper, West Greene’s lone loss that season was to Duquesne in the WPIAL championship game.
The Pioneers won the Tri-County South Conference, its only blemish a tie with Monessen, which finished second.