Woodland Hills off to worst start in school history
Tim Bostard calls himself “blessed and fortunate” to be Woodland Hills’ football coach. He says he challenges himself every day to get his team better and he believes the Wolverines are close to winning games. He is forever positive.
But Bostard also realizes the negativity surrounding the Wolverines. This season has not provided any positives, at least in terms of wins. Halfway through the regular season, things have never been this bad at Woodland Hills.
Woodland Hills is 0-5. Since the school opened in 1987, the Wolverines have never started 0-5. This comes after last year when Woodland Hills started 0-4.
Every year over the past decade, Woodland Hills has had the most graduates in the NFL of any WPIAL school. They have three this year. But things certainly aren’t the same at the school with the glorious tradition.
Bostard is in his third season since taking over for legendary George Novak, the only coach the school had had. Novak won five WPIAL titles at Woodland Hills.
Besides the lack of wins, the one thing that’s not the same at Woodland Hills is participation in football. The shrinking roster isn’t as bad for Woodland Hills as other schools, but 83 players were out for the team this year, and that included 22 freshman. Only 10 years ago, Woodland Hills had 88 players — and no freshmen.
“Whenever the program was hot, we’d have 100 kids,” said Bostard, a former Woodland Hills player and assistant coach.
“The whole concussion thing caused some numbers to drop. Plus, the whole school issue thing where there were some bad things in the news might have caused us to lose some students, also. With the transition and changes, unfortunately this hasn’t been the same Woodland Hills team as when George was here.”
Woodland Hills has been to the WPIAL playoffs 23 consecutive years, the second-longest streak in WPIAL history. That streak is in jeopardy. But after starting 0-4 a year ago, Woodland Hills won four of its final six in the regular season, knocked off Mars in the first round of the playoffs and lost in the quarterfinals to West Allegheny, 14-13.
Bostard remains optimistic.
“The first three weeks, we lost some kids to injuries and had some kids out for academics,” said Bostard, whose team lost its past two games by a total of seven points. “We’ve got some of those kids back. I thought we’ve made some good strides the past two weeks. … Everyone always used to say, ‘Play Woodland Hills early because it takes time for them to become a coherent group.’ Once we get rolling, people don’t want to play us.”
On pace for records?
The regular season is halfway over and a few players are on pace to challenge some WPIAL records:
• Upper St. Clair quarterback Ethan Dahlem and receiver David Pantelis are putting up eye-opening statistics. Pantelis has 38 catches for 889 yards. The WPIAL record for most receiving yards in the regular season is 1,682, by Mt. Lebanon’s Aidan Cain two years ago. Pantelis is more than halfway to the record.
Dahlem has thrown for 1,414 yards. The WPIAL regular-season record was set a year ago by Sto-Rox’s Eric Wilson with 3,003 yards.
• While Dahlem might reach Wilson’s record of 3,003 yards, Wilson also might break his record. He has 1,591 yards passing.
• West Greene’s Ben Jackson continued to put up ridiculous statistics when he ran 22 times for 429 yards (seventhhighest total in WPIAL history) and scored four touchdowns against Monessen. He now has 1,419 yards on 68 attempts, an average of 21 yards per carry, and also 24 touchdowns.
The records for most yards rushing in the regular season, most yards rushing in a season (including playoffs) and most touchdowns in the regular season were set by Armstrong’s Zane Dudek in 2016. The regular-season record is 2,949 and the most yards, including playoffs, is 2,955. The regular-season record for touchdowns is 42.
Ruane on Massillon
Penn-Trafford, the Post-Gazette’s No. 1--ranked WPIAL 5A team and No. 2 in the state, lost at perennial Ohio power Massillon, 42-21. Penn-Trafford coach John Ruane came away thinking Massillon would be one of the best teams in Western Pennsylvania.
“Their quarterback is as good as it gets and he’s surrounded by two major Division I college receivers,” Ruane said. “They have arguably the best line I’ve ever seen. I can’t think of a line as big and as athletic as those guys.”
But Ruane believes Gateway can be competitive with Massillon when the two meet Oct. 11.
The other thing that impressed Ruane about Massillon was Paul Brown Stadium, which seats 16,884.
“I’ve never been part of a high school atmosphere like that,” Ruane said. “The drive into the stadium was crazy. There was tailgating all over. They have a Jumbotron. There were fireworks before the game and fireworks after touchdowns. It was like a small-school Division I college football game. It was an awesome experience. I’m really glad we did it.”
Southmoreland surging
Southmoreland is 5-0 and the win against Brownsville Friday just about clinched a WPIAL playoff berth for the first time in 40 years. It would pretty much take a miracle for the Scotties not to make the playoffs. But it’s just not Southmoreland’s start that’s impressive. It’s how the Scotties are winning that is eye-opening. Southmoreland has scored 255 points and is averaging 51 points, secondbest in the WPIAL to West Greene (56.8). To put Southmoreland’s offensive output into perspective, consider that the Scotties have already scored more points this season than 17 of the past 19 seasons. Since 2000, Southmoreland has scored 200 points in a season only three times — 332 a year ago, 275 in 2011 and 238 in 2007. Southmoreland plays host to undefeated McGuffey Friday. You could say this is the biggest regularseason game in school history.