Aug 28, 2025 By Jerin Steele 4 min read

It has been a difficult week around the Washington community after the death of Ron Todd, a beloved coach, teacher and mentor at Wash High.

And it’ll be an emotional evening when the Prexies host Steel Valley, 7 p.m. tonight at Wash High Stadium.

Todd died of a heart attack at last Friday’s Wash High game against McGuffey. He was the middle school football head coach, a varsity assistant coach, and coached baseball and the unified bocce program at Wash High.

Most of the players that will suit up for the Prexies tonight got their start at Washington playing for Todd.

“He was very important to the kids, the school and the community,” Wash High coach Mike Bosnic said. “He was kind of their introduction to Wash High athletics. He just meant a lot to the kids. He was a great guy and someone who would do anything to help anybody at any time.”

Todd’s funeral was Thursday and there was a pregame ceremony planned at Thursday’s Washington middle school football game against Monessen.

He will also be honored prior to the varsity game tonight.

The Prexies hope to honor Todd with their play as well.

The matchup features two successful small-school WPIAL football programs.

Washington has seven WPIAL titles and Steel Valley has six.

Last year, the Ironmen beat the Prexies twice 28-8 in the regular season and 49-28 in the first round of the playoffs. Both games were at Steel Valley.

It was a beat-up Washington team that went to Munhall last year in the regular season.

“It just seemed like that when we went down there last year everything that could go wrong did,” Bosnic said. “We were dealing with a lot of injuries and had a really young team. We had some freshmen that we had to rely on that were just very inexperienced.”

Steel Valley is coming off a 22-12 loss to Westinghouse Saturday at Woodland Hills’ Wolvarena.

The Ironmen’s offense is centered around standout senior quarterback Da’Ron Barksdale. He is committed to Pitt as a defensive back.

Barksdale rushed for 158 yards and had 106 yards passing in the loss to Westinghouse. He threw a 29-yard touchdown pass to Torien Barnett and scored on a 12-yard run.

“They’re very good,” Bosnic said. “They have a really good quarterback in Barksdale who is very hard to tackle. It’s definitely going to be a huge challenge for us.”

Washington also has a Division I recruit playing quarterback in Tristan Reed.

Reed is committed to Miami (Ohio) as a wide receiver.

The Prexies beat rival McGuffey, 28-7, in their opener, but it wasn’t as academic as the final score indicates.

Washington was clinging to a 9-7 lead at halftime after a late second-quarter fumble led to a McGuffey touchdown.

The Prexies came out of the locker room and scored 19 unanswered points to pull away.

Blaise Naraskivitch had a three-yard touchdown run and Ameer Nelson scored on runs of 25 and 20 yards.

Reed had a big 52-yard completion to Caleb Patton that set up the first Nelson touchdown. They also connected on a 41-yard pass in the second quarter.

“We were able to make big plays in that second half,” Bosnic said. “Ameer Nelson busted some long runs for us. Tristan made some plays. Caleb Patton had over 100 yards receiving and caught a couple big passes. We just played a lot better than we did in the first half.

“We just needed to settle down and play football. Thankfully the kids came out in the second half and got things clicking and played a lot better.”

Against Steel Valley, the Prexies know they’ll need to play strong for all four quarters. They hope they knocked the rust off in Week Zero and can play crisper from start to finish.

“We learned from the film some things we need to clean up and do better,” Bosnic said. “We’re just trying to get better from week to week. It’s really important that we make a big jump from Week Zero to Week One.”