Bucs are out to build on last year’s success
Mark Marietta
Chartiers-Houston had to wait 25 years before ending its playoff drought last fall. Now, despite a bump up to Class 2A, the Bucs look to have continued progress and win more playoff games.
The Bucs will try to start down that path by replacing the large amount of leadership that was lost to graduation.
“Those kids last season brought a level of leadership that didn’t need to be spoken,” said third-year head coach Dan Lis. “We have a lot of leadership. It’s just how can we get it focused?
“The players we return have a ton of experience on the defensive side of the ball. We have a really good group of freshmen and a handful of freshman players are going to get a significant amount of playing time to start the year.”
Chartiers-Houston is one of four new teams in the Double-A Century Conference along with Bishop Canevin, McGuffey and Quaker Valley. Carlynton, Keystone Oaks and reigning Double-A district champion Seton LaSalle remain as the holdovers.
“I think it’s the strongest conference, just like the Black Hills Conference last year,” Lis said. “I felt like that conference was pretty loaded in Single-A.”
The Bucs will open with their first two of six road games, at Fort Cherry and then at Waynesburg Central before hosting Jefferson-Morgan. Chartiers-Houston then enters conference play before one final non-conference game at Apollo-Ridge in Week Seven.
Chartiers-Houston will have a new quarterback this season in Teegan Bogden. The junior was slotted to play wide receiver for the Bucs last season before missing most of the year with an injury.
Bogden will replace all-state standout Aaron Walsh, who graduated and will play nearby at Washington & Jefferson College.
“(Bogden) tearing his ACL last year give him a ton of time to learn under Aaron. He was able to be around the huddle and with Aaron as much as possible,” Lis pointed out. “Aaron was able to help Teegan learn that position a little more because he would have been a receiver the entire season and wouldn’t have been able to learn as much quarterback. We joked and called him Coach Bogden during the year.”
Bogden should have plenty of options with a strong group of returning skill players around him.
At running back, junior Dominic Andreolli is a versatile piece who can be used in both the run and pass game. On the outside, the Bucs will deploy a pair of seniors in Julius Livingston and last year’s leading receiver Brody McCrerey.
“Brody is an incredible athlete,” Lis said. “He pretty much catches anything that’s thrown near him, and he’s obviously going to be relied on heavily this year, as will Julius.”
On the offensive line Chartiers-Houston returns seniors Isaac Ketler, Emiliano Perez and Mason Kasperowski.
The Bucs return eight starters on the defensive side of the football and is led by a strong junior class.
“It’s a ton of juniors this year for us. We have 13 juniors and most of them will play meaningful minutes for us. It’s a big class,” Lis said.
The junior returning starters on defense are Tyler Clayton and Brayden Thompson on the defensive line, Andreolli and Peyton Garove at linebacker and Brody Lynch and Tommy Dzura in the secondary.
Livingston and McCrerey are the two senior returners, with both playing cornerback.
Lis credits some of last year’s success to the program’s offseason workouts and expects them to matter just as much this fall.
“On Mondays and Fridays, we do sprint-focused workouts with nothing football related. Then the other two days we do only an hour and 15 minutes of football practice. Health and availability is the number one factor in Single and Double-A.”
Chartiers-Houston opens the season Friday at former Black Hills Conference foe Fort Cherry.