Gateway looks to finish season strong
If you offered him a No. 2 or No. 3 playoff seed, Gateway coach Don Holl would take the higher seed, sure.
Still, that’s not the focus as Holl prepares his team, led by senior quarterback Brady Walker, to close out the season against Franklin Regional. A win would also ensure Gateway would begin the playoffs at home.
“You can only control what you can control, and the first thing you can control is yes, let’s get the win,” Holl said. “What the win does for us, just like every other week when that’s our focus, it gives us a home playoff game. So if we’re first or second, we’ll play another game at Antimarino Stadium, which I think is a very attractive thing for our team and our fans.”
The Gators were 5-0 before Penn-Trafford dealt them a 28-0 loss, though three straight wins, including last week’s 21-18 loss to McKeesport, put them back in good standing in the Big East Conference.
Though the loss briefly upended Gateway’s season, Holl said the Gators responded “in only the right way” and are better for it.
“Let’s evaluate the film and see what we did well, see what we didn’t do well,” Holl said after the loss. “You can always find lots of things we did well in the game that we lost and lots of very obvious reasons why we didn’t finish drives on either side of the ball or why we didn’t do something right in another aspect of the game… At the end of the day, if you go through that process and you really believe it’s the best way to get better the next week, sometimes a loss tells you more than a win.”
Upper St. Clair’s 41-14 blowout loss to McKeesport could benefit Gateway if the Gators win again Friday, as they could receive the No. 2 seed behind Penn-Trafford, if Penn-Trafford beats McKeesport today.
Despite the loss, Gateway hasn’t changed its aggressive style of play, Holl said.
“For us to be that kind of team, we’re going to take some chances, we’re going to go for it on some fourth downs, we’re going to run some high-risk plays, and you hope that they’re highyield plays as well, and you hope that you convert those fourth downs. We’ll do some things that you may say the conventional wisdom or the super conservative NFL might say ‘Don’t do this,’” Holl said. “We’re not going to be that team.”
South Fayette
The Lions, led by quarterback Drew Saxton, will travel to Montour today as they try and tie the WPIAL record for most consecutive perfect regular seasons with six. Braddock did so six times from 1954-59 and Aliquippa did so from 201015.
South Fayette is undefeated in the Northwest Nine and would hang on to its first place status in the conference with a win.
Bethel Park
Bethel Park and Mt. Lebanon are undefeated in Southeastern Conference play and will face off today, with the winner getting the No. 1 seed in the conference and the losergetting the No. 2 seed.
The teams are two of seven teams still undefeated in conference play, joining Pine-Richland (5-0 Northern Seven), Upper St. Clair (7-0 Allegheny Nine), Penn-Trafford (7-0 Big East), Belle Vernon (8-0 Big Nine) and South Fayette (7-0 Northwest Nine).