Pioneers end drought with playoff berth
West Greene has qualified for the WPIAL playoffs for the first time since 1993, ending the third-longest playoff droughtof any district team.
Surely, there has to be many superlatives being used to describe the success of a program that has experienced very little over the years.
Just don’t ask coach Rod Huffman to share any of them. “No words,” Huffman said. He then offered a couple. “It’s really big, really big for the school and the kids,” he said.
West Greene enters the final week of the regular season 7-2 overall and 4-2 in the Class 1A Tri-County South Conference.The Pioneers are a big underdog Friday against No. 2-ranked conference leader California (9-0), but if they can pull off an upset, there’s a chance they could host a first-round playoff game. It would be another huge feat for a team that didn’t win a game two seasonsago.
“This is my third year here. I’ve been a part of two other programs that both started from scratch,” said Huffman, who previously coached high school football in Georgia. “I’m not saying that’s where we were at West Greene because we had a feeder system at the middle school and had some good teams come through junior high. We’re still young, but a lot of them got playing time as freshmen. Now we have a good sophomore group, a good junior group, and for the first time in a long time, wehave eight seniors.”
West Greene has improved immensely on both sides of the ball. Last year’s team scored 16 points per game and gave up 26.9. This season, the Pioneers are scoring 34.4 a game and allowing 16. They’ve scored at least 42 points five times, something they had accomplished only four times the previous 10 seasons.
Among the players playing big roles in the massive turnaroundhave been senior quarterback Zach Pettit and sophomore running back Ben Jackson. The two have combined for 30 touchdowns in the team’s run-heavy offense -- (Pettit 17 and Jackson 13) -- and Jackson has rushed formore than 1,200 yards.
Unfortunately, Jackson exited last week’s 20-14 win at Western Beaver with an ankle injury and Huffman said Sunday that Jackson will likely miss the rest of the season. That would shake up the Pioneers offensively with Pettitpossibly moving to running back and sophomore Gavin Scott starting at quarterback.
Jeannette
Robert “Poogie” Kennedy is one of the WPIAL’s most dynamic players and has helped Jeannette reach the WPIAL Class 1A final two years in a row, but one thing the quarterback has not done in his four seasons is beat Clairton. The Jayhawks are 41-6 in that time, but 0-5 against Clairton, which defeated the Jayhawks in each of the last two WPIAL championship games.
Kennedy and the Jayhawks will get another crack at the Bears on Friday when they travel to Clairton for an Eastern Conference showdown.
“To not win against a team for the last five times we played against them adds a little bit of fuel to the fire,” Kennedy said.
Unlike those previous five games,Jeannette is the favorite. The Jayhawks are 9-0 and ranked No. 1 in the WPIAL and No. 2 in the state, while Clairtonis 6-2 and ranked No. 5 in the WPIAL. The Jayhawks have clinched a share of the conference title, their first since 2011. A Clairton winwould likely split the title between three teams. Jeannette is 6-0 in conference play and Clairton and Imani Christian are 5-1. Imani Christian hosts 0-6 Leechburgon Saturday.
Charleroi
Charleroi’s 49-44 win against Beth-Center was officially a Class 2A Century Conference game, but it might have more resembled a game played between teams in one of college football’s most high-scoring conferences.
“It was a wild one. It was like one of those Big 12 games wherewhoever makes one or two stops was going to win the game. Our defensive staff did a good job and we were able to get a few in the second half,” Charleroi coach DonnieMilitzer said.
Hunter Perry’s third touchdown of the game gave Charleroi a 49-44 lead with 2:42 left. Beth-Center’s Dominic Fundy rushed for 310 yardsand scored three touchdowns. Charleroi’s Gino Pellegrini passed for 314 yards and three touchdowns and alsoran for a score.
Charleroi (8-1) and BethCenter (7-2) are both playoff bound. It will be Charleroi’s first trip to the playoffs since 2004.