Hampton, Quaker Valley renew rivalry
Berth in Class 2A final will be on line Monday
Hampton and Quaker Valley have not met this season, but that is not to say they are strangers to one another.
In fact, the previous time they met was in the 2018 WPIAL Class 2A championship match, which the Talbots pulled out, 11-9, to earn their second consecutive title.
This year, the two teams are a bit different. Hampton is rebuilding somewhat and changing things around; Quaker Valley has a new coach and has continued to surge throughout the season.
At the end of the day, though, the teams won’t meet this year with a championship on the line, but a berth in the title game will be at stake when they square off at 6:30 p.m. Monday at North Allegheny in the WPIAL semifinals.
“We’re really looking forward to it and I’m sure Quaker is too as far as the matchup,” Hampton coach Kelsey Viets said.
“We’ve certainly learned a lot from out last championship meeting as far as our overall team strategy as far as the game plan and we’ve gone from pounding some key aspects to supporting everyone on the field.”
That philosophical overhaul forced Hampton to take a few lumps earlier this season. The Talbots opened the year 1-2 with losses to Mt. Lebanon and Pine-Richland and also ceded the section to Oakland Catholic thanks to a 13-9 loss against the Eagles April 15.
It’s also a reason the defending champions got the No. 3 seed in the field and Quaker Valley was seeded No. 2.
“In terms of the longevity of the program and being able to face really tough opponents day in and day out, we needed to do what we did this year,” Viets said.
“We’ve been working really hard for this and we’re anxious to show everyone just how hard we’ve been working.”
While Quaker Valley and Hampton had to wait a year for a rematch, top-seeded Oakland Catholic and No. 4 Seton LaSalle had to hold off for only a couple of months until they meet at 4 p.m. Monday at Fox Chapel. The teams faced off in their first scrimmage of the season and, even though they didn’t keep score, they got a pretty good feel for each other.
While Oakland Catholic has gone through the season unscathed, Seton LaSalle dealt with a midseason three-game losing streak against Hampton, Blackhawk and Quaker Valley before reeling off five consecutive wins.
“One of the things that we talked about was that they were close games and we had a lead at some point in the second half of all those games and they were against good teams,” Seton LaSalle coach Brian Kilsavage said. “I thought that the top seven teams in the WPIAL could beat anyone else on a given night, and all they had to do was execute.”
Seton LaSalle might also have an advantage over the rest of the field in another respect. Eight of its 14 games were decided by three goals or less and playing in tight contests can only help against an Eagles squad that has been blowing teams out most of the year.
“They’ve been in tight games, so they’re not really fazed if we get down a couple of goals early,” Kilsavage said. “They just get ready for the next draw.”
Class 3A
Pine-Richland is not quite ready to give up its title.
Even though the Rams entered the postseason as the No. 5 seed and did not get a bye, they easily dispatched Norwin and well-rested Bethel Park to set up a showdown against top-seeded Upper St. Clair at 6 p.m. Monday at Mars. And what a showdown it should be.
Upper St. Clair lost only one game this season and will enter the semifinals riding a 16-game winning streak. That loss was in the season opener against Pine-Richland, 87.
Pine-Richland has played things a little closer than in past years and is 3-2 in onegoal matches.
In the other semifinal, Shady Side Academy might have owned the top seed until a 7-6 loss against Mt. Lebanon in the regularseason finale. Now the No. 2 Indians will take on the sixth-seeded Blue Devils at 6 p.m. at Moon in the wake of a 9-6 upset win against No. 3 Fox Chapel.