Aug 16, 2025 By Jerin Steele 5 min read

HOUSTON – When Chartiers-Houston coach Dan Lis looked back at last season, he thought maybe went a little overboard trying to be perfect with every little detail.

It was his first time as a head coach and there was progress made going from a winless 2023 to three wins last year, but he senses his team has more in it.

But with how hard, and sometimes long, they practiced, he could tell everyone was worn out both physically and mentally by season’s end.

So, the team shortened some of their spring and summer workouts to be fresh and ready to take another step forward.

“I learned that high school kids want to enjoy their life, but at practice they are here to work hard and we’re seeing that right now,” Lis said. “We do leadership meetings in the offseason, and we invited the entire varsity team to those meetings. One of the things we stress is that we want to be player-led where we can sit back and our kids are going to get the drills going themselves and get the pads out here for practice. At the end of the day, I think those things win games. I learned that it’s more of a process than just results right away.”

Lis has a large group of seniors mixed with a promising sophomore class.

There are a dozen seniors on the team, including Aaron Walsh, a three-year starter at quarterback.

Walsh and his fellow seniors went through the growing pains together, especially in that winless season when they were sophomores. They came out of it calloused and more experienced.

“It’s really exciting because I’ve played with all these guys growing up,” Walsh said. “It’s our chance to be the seniors on the team and really lead everyone else how we wanted to be led growing up.”

Nobody should question Walsh’s work ethic.

That was on display in the spring when he was practicing three different sports in one week. He was at practice with the Bucs’ basketball team that made the state playoffs, did preseason workouts with the baseball team and went to track and field practices.

“Aaron is someone that any coach would be lucky to have,” Lis said. “He’s the kind of guy that will ask what he can do to help the team. Do you need me to go safety or cornerback or get some scout team reps at receiver to get a good look at an opponent that week? It’s hard to find a kid like that.”

Walsh hopes to play collegiately as a wide receiver and is following a similar path to Lis.

Lis played quarterback at Chartiers-Houston and went on to be a receiver at Washington & Jefferson. Lis said he’s been working with Walsh on some receiver drills when they have time between preparing for him to be the starting quarterback.

Walsh was all-conference as an athlete last season.

The Bucs will have an experienced line in front of Walsh with four senior starters: Cam Durkacs, Jacob Lyle, Owen Straight and Jonathan Louden.

Most of them will play on both sides of the ball.

Other seniors expected to make a big impact include Jake Luba (tight end/running back/linebacker), Dadrien Walls (wide receiver), and Austin Mruk (middle linebacker).

Lis is impressed with the natural football instincts of his sophomore class, which includes Dominic Andreolli (running back), Teegan Bogden (quarterback), Brody Lynch (wide receiver/defensive back) and Tommy Dzura (defensive back), among others. Borden will line up at multiple positions this year while Walsh is the quarterback.

“They are kids that really know football. It’s one thing when a kid wants to be really good at football and you have to teach them certain things about football and it’s another when they just know it and can pick it up.”

Of the three wins Chartiers-Houston had last season, only one was in the Class A Black Hills Conference, that against Burgettstown.

The goal is to have a better showing in conference play and fight for a postseason berth. The Bucs know that won’t be easy, with the likes of Fort Cherry, Monessen, Cornell, Bishop Canevin and Serra Catholic in their path.

Fort Cherry is the two-time defending WPIAL champ. Bishop Canevin has been a semifinalist the last two years.

“I think we wanted to compete last year, but now we really want to compete more in some of those bigger games, especially in our conference,” Lis said. “We have a hard conference. It’s no secret that it’s one of the toughest in all of the six classifications. We want to make the playoffs. That’s the goal, but to get there we just have to take it one day at a time.”