Sep 26, 2025 By Jerin Steele 5 min read

Peters Township football coach TJ Plack doesn’t need to be reminded of the importance of this week’s game against Upper St. Clair, but he’s glad when people do.

“Every time you talk to someone they’ll say, “Hey, big game this week.” and things like that,” Plack said. “It’s why we coach and why the kids play. These are the moments everyone hopes for. Playing in big games with teams that are both highly ranked in the state of Pennsylvania.”

Peters Township hosts Upper St. Clair, 7 p.m. tonight in a battle of unbeaten teams in the Class 5A Allegheny Six Conference.

It’s the conference opener for both teams, who are quite familiar with one another.

It’ll be their third meeting since last year. Upper St. Clair (5-0) won last year’s regular season meeting 21-7, but Peters Township (5-0) won in the WPIAL Class 5A semifinals, 7-3. It was the Panthers’ only loss of the season.

Predicting how tonight’s game will go is difficult. Both teams have explosive offenses and stout defenses. It could be a shootout or a low scorer like last year’s semifinal, but the safest bet is that it’ll be a close game.

“It’s usually a four-quarter affair and typically when we lock horns it’s a knock-down, drag-out game,” Upper St. Clair coach Mike Junko said. “I don’t think it’ll be any different with this year’s version.”

Upper St. Clair has revamped its offensive attack going from a run-first team to using more spread formations and leaning on the passing attack.

Panthers quarterback Ethan Hellmann leads the WPIAL in passing with 1,278 yards and has 18 touchdowns to one interception. He’s hit 13 different receivers this year, but his top two targets have been Nico D’Orazio and Bryce Jones. D’Orazio has 16 receptions for 403 yards and seven touchdowns, while Jones has 13 receptions for 285 yards and three touchdowns.

“We were the least surprised people in the room to see the success (Hellmann) is having,” Junko said. “We’ve always known he’s had this in him, but he just hasn’t necessarily had the opportunity to showcase it. The way we were built last year it wasn’t something that he needed to do. This year we needed him to be that guy and thus far he’s been that and more.”

Peters Township quarterback Nolan DiLucia has been pretty good too. DiLucia, a Villanova recruit, is third in the WPIAL in passing with 1,120 yards and 10 touchdowns to one interception.

Both quarterbacks will be up against tough defenses.

The Indians have allowed only 26 points, while Upper St. Clair has yielded 31.

Peters Township has three shutouts, led by their two standout defensive linemen, Reston Lehman, a Pitt recruit, and Lucas Shanafelt, a Stanford recruit.

“Anytime you post a shutout it’s an incredible accomplishment,” Plack said. “It’s like an offense putting up 500 yards or 600 yards. Our defensive coaches and players take a lot of pride in that. Even when we put some of our second teamers in, we’re still trying to get that shutout. We’ve had a standard here for a couple years. We’ve truly been blessed with a bunch of guys that are special talents, especially at outside linebacker, inside linebacker, defensive line and in the secondary.”

While DiLucia has continued to drive the offense, he’s had a good running mate in the backfield this year in Cole Neupaver.

Neupaver has 542 rushing yards and nine touchdowns. He’s also a standout hockey player for Peters Township and the Pens Elite club team.

“Cole came out for football last year after not playing since sixth grade,” Plack said. “He just started to get back into the groove last year when he broke his hand and had a cast on and didn’t get to see a lot of time. We were really excited about him going into this year. He’s got a strong, low center of gravity and is the fastest player on the team when he’s running with the ball, and on the flipside of that our offensive line has certainly jelled. We start three juniors and two seniors and it’s really coming together up front, and we’ll roll three or four tight ends as well. Everyone has been sharing in the blocking for Cole and when you throw the ball as well as we can it opens a lot of things up.”

Neither coach hid from the fact that Friday is a big game and the first one of a gauntlet in the Allegheny Six Conference. Getting off to a good start in conference play is important to both teams.

“You try to downplay it as much as possible, but there’s that extra bit of juice,” Plack said. “As coaches you’re crossing your T’s and dotting your I’s, making sure we put our guys in the right place in all three facets of the game.”