Four Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL) high school football championships will be decided on the turf at Acrisure Stadium, home of the National Football League‘s Pittsburgh Steelers, on Saturday.
The tradition of the Steelers hosting the powerful football league’s championship games dates back to Three Rivers Stadium in 1986. The WPIAL has been playing high school football championship games since 1915.
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“We are proud to bring the WPIAL Championship Games played at Acrisure Stadium back to broadcast television for the second straight year,” said Dan Rooney, Steelers Director of Business Development & Strategy. “The championship games being on television provide an additional platform for Western Pennsylvania to watch and celebrate high school football on the big stage.”
The 5A championship game is a battle between teams ranked in the High School Football America Pennsylvania Top 25 high school football rankings, powered by NFL Play Football.
No. 6 Pine-Richland (10-1) will be looking for revenge when it plays No. 13 Peters Township (11-1). The Rams lost to Peters Township 43-17 in last year’s championship game. The Indians then went-on to finish runner-up in the state tournament.
Saturday’s action gets started with the 1A title game between Fort Cherry and Clairton. Both teams enter the game with perfect 13-0 records.
Fort Cherry is the reigning WPIAL 1A champ. Clairton owns 14 WPIAL championships, the second most all-time.
Fort Cherry junior quarterback Matt Sieg is on his way to a record-breaking career. Last week, Sieg joined former NFL quarterback/wide receiver Terrelle Pryor as only the second player in WPIAL history to both pass and rush for more than 4,000 yards in a career. Sieg enters the game with 6,091 yards rushing and 4,015 yards passing for 10,106 career total yards.
Seton LaSalle (11-0) plays South Park (11-1) in the 2A championship game. Both teams are looking to snap long WPIAL championship droughts. Seton LaSalle hasn’t won a title in 20 years. South Park hasn’t captured title in 19 years.
At the other end of the spectrum is Central Valley (7-5), which will be playing in its tenth WPIAL championship game since the school opened in 2009. The Warriors, who will be playing Avonworth (10-3) in Saturday’s 3A title game, has won five titles. Back on September 27, Avonworth beat CV 21-14.
All of Saturday’s winner move on to the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association’s state semifinals.
