Jan 21, 2025 By Jerin Steele 3 min read

For the second consecutive year, Peters Township’s Nolan DiLucia and Fort Cherry’s Matt Sieg are finalists for the Willie Thrower Award, which recognizes the top high school quarterback in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Finalists were announced by the Willie Thrower Award Committee, Tuesday.

The winner will be revealed at a luncheon at the Knead Café ballroom in New Kensington on March 29.

DiLucia and Sieg are among five finalists. The other three are North Catholic’s Joey Felitsky, Bethel Park’s Tanner Pfeuffer and Central Catholic’s Jy’Aire Walls.

Sieg is a Penn State commit. DiLucia picked up an offer Tuesday from Fordham.

The winner will take home a 29-pound replica of the Willie Thrower statue that sits inside Valley High Memorial Stadium in New Kensington, Willie Thrower’s hometown.

Thrower helped lead the former New Kensington High School to WPIAL titles in 1946 and ’47, and a runner-up in 1945. He became the first Black quarterback in the Big Ten Conference while with Michigan State in 1952, and the first Black quarterback to take a snap in an NFL game while with the Chicago Bears in 1953.

This is the fifth year for the award. Previous winners were: Pine-Richland’s Cole Spencer (2020-21), Armstrong’s Cadin Olsen (2022) and Central Catholic’s Peyton Wehner (2023).

Offers picking up

Reston Lehman and Lucas Shanafelt figure to be key players for Peters Township next season and some colleges are taking notice of both of them.

Lehman announced a slew of new NCAA Division I offers on Tuesday, including one from Indiana, to add to an ever-growing list.

He also has offers from Pitt, Penn State, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Virginia Tech, Cincinnati as well as offers from some Mid-American Conference schools.

Lehman was an all-conference linebacker and punter as a junior.

Shanafelt, a second team all-conference defensive end, has seven Division I offers. The latest was from Miami (Ohio) last week. He also has offers from Buffalo, Toledo, Eastern Michigan Cornell,and Penn.

Senior lineman Franco Muscatello received an offer from Bucknell last week.

Sabatucci adds offer

Canon-McMillan junior TJ Sabatucci picked up an offer from Toledo on Tuesday.

It’s Sabatucci’s second offer from a Mid-American Conference school. He also has one from Miami (Ohio).

Sabatucci was first-team all WPIAL Class 6A at tight end in the fall.

Trinity wins Battle for the Belt

The Trinity boys wrestling team made a trip to Ohio and dominated over the weekend.

The Hillers won the Berkshire Battle for the Belt team title by 99 points over second place West Holmes. They were the lone team from Pennsylvania out of the 19 teams that participated in the tournament.

Trinity had five champions and seven wrestlers in the individual finals.

Jackson Hoy (106) and Dominick Canali (126) won by tech fall, Jacob Wright (132) earned a major decision, Thomas Allison (144) won by fall, and Jackson Bruckner (190) picked up a decision in their respective championship matches.

Luke Poland lost by fall in the 150-pound final and Devin Junko (138) dropped a 16-10 decision.