Five things we learned in Week 2
Each Monday we’ll look back at some of the highlights from the week that was in local high school football.
Sieg is Fort Cherry’s QB king: Matt Sieg added another milestone to his amazing career at Fort Cherry by surpassing his coach Tanner Garry as the school’s all-time leader in passing yards in a 55-8 win over West Greene.
Sieg has 4,533 yards passing in his career with the Rangers, besting the 4,502 yards Garry finished his career with.
Outside of mother nature intervening and making it a storm-shortened game, the debut of the new turf at Jim Garry Stadium was pretty seamless for Fort Cherry.
The Rangers scored seven seconds into the game and rolled from there. West Greene was the first team to score points against the Rangers this season. Joel Rizor threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to Matt Wassil for the Pioneers.
The unbeatens list is at five: The remaining local teams that are undefeated in 2025 are Fort Cherry, Monessen, Jefferson-Morgan, Avella and Peters Township.
Monessen took down Beth-Center 20-3. Peters Township rolled to a 35-0 win over Mt. Lebanon. Avella cruised past Springdale 35-6 and Jefferson-Morgan topped Burgettstown, 26-10, in a battle of previously unbeaten teams.
Along with Burgettstown, South Fayette and California dropped their first games.
Canon-McMillan beat South Fayette 37-28 to give Brian DeLallo his first win as the Big Macs’ coach.
Waynesburg bounced back from a loss to Jefferson-Morgan to beat California, 27-20. The Raiders rallied from a 20-7 deficit in the second half to stun the Trojans.
Statistical standouts: Local players were near to top of the three major offensive categories Friday night.
Peters Township’s Nolan DiLucia and Canon-McMillan’s Ty Jansma were in the top five in passing yards. DiLucia was 15 of 19 passing for 288 yards, which ranked second in the WPIAL. He threw one touchdown pass to Cole Neupaver.
Jansma’s 243 yards ranked fifth. He was 14 of 24 with three touchdowns.
Mapletown’s Carson Vanata (278 yards) and Ringgold’s Amoni Ward (240 yards) ranked third and fourth in rushing.
South Fayette’s Daniel Speca racked up 164 yards on eight receptions and had two touchdowns in the loss to Canon-McMillan. He was third in receiving yards in the WPIAL.
In the season-long race, DiLucia is second in passing yards with 776, two yards behind Bethel Park’s Evan Devine.
Bentworth’s Ben Hays is third in the WPIAL in rushing with 580 yards and Ward is fourth at 522.
Hays had 155 yards rushing Friday in Bentworth’s 45-0 win over Charleroi.
Belle Vernon gets a tough road win: Over the years not too many teams have gone to Monaca to play Central Valley and left with a victory, but that’s what Belle Vernon did Friday night.
Curtis Wade scored what proved to be the winning touchdown on a five-yard run in the fourth quarter in a 25-22 win over the Warriors.
Wade also had two touchdown passes to Nick Mahalko of 31 and 56 yards.
It was the first win for Scott Bryer as Belle Vernon’s head coach. Bryer took over for Matt Humbert, who stepped down after last season.
Mother nature makes presence known again: For the second year in a row, thunderstorms caused havoc for football teams in Week 2. Most local games were delayed for at least a half hour in the second half because of a line of storms that rolled into the area between 8:30 and 9 p.m. Friday.
Most games were able to be completed after the delays, but Fort Cherry/West Greene was called at halftime and Ringgold/Yough was deemed complete after three quarters.
Last year a bunch of games didn’t get through the first quarter before the storms came. Some games were cancelled, while others were moved to Saturday and some others played late into the night.
Staff writer Jerin Steele can be reached at jsteele@observer-reporter.com