Steel City Blitz
The 2025 WPIAL playoffs began last week with first round games in 1A through 5A. In 2A, 13 teams made the playoffs with the top three earning byes. The champion will be crowned at Acrisure Stadium on November 22 and enter the State brackets the following week in the semifinals. The three teams that received first round byes get to play home playoff games this week. There were no upsets in the first round of the 2A bracket, leaving the top eight seeds in the quarterfinals. Of note, Western Beaver will be hosting their first Friday night playoff game after installing lights at their stadium this year.
Check out this week’s edition of the WPIAL Blitz Show where we broke down all of the playoff matchups!
Seton LaSalle is the top seed in 2A for the second straight year. The Rebels fell to South Park in the Championship Game last year. Mohawk reached the semifinals for the first time in school history in 2023. Seton had to replace a number of starters on this year’s team and is more of a run-heavy outfit led by Kymarr Freeman (1321 yards, 21 TDs). Kia Jones Jr took over the quarterback role in the middle of the season, throwing for 772 yards and 7 TDs and running for 440 yards and 5 scores. In addition to Freeman and Jones, Deondre Hill has run for 477 yards and 5 TDs. Seton’s leading receiver is Matthew Brodzinski (330 yards, 3 TDs). The Rebels defense is led by two FCS commits at outside linebacker – Monmouth-commit Aaron Loritts and Duquesne-commit Will Martin. Mohawk is one of the hottest teams in the WPIAL. After losing to New Brighton to fall to 2-4, the Warriors rattled off three straight wins to get into the playoffs, including a 20-point victory over conference champions Western Beaver. Mohawk’s turnaround came thanks to dual-threat QB Bobby Fadden who threw for 1383 yards and 14 TDs and ran for 561 yards and 9 TDs. In their first round win over OLSH, Fadden ran for 86 yards and threw for 140 yards and 2 TDs – both going to leading receiver Joey Nail (507 yards, 8 TDs). The Warriors had to rotate a number of players through the backfield due to injury and wound up with freshman Lucas Stratton (632 rushing yards, 498 receiving yards, 8 total TDs) leading the team in rushing.
South Allegheny finished in a 3-way tie for the conference title, their first since 1986. The Gladiators looked primed for one of the top seeds in the bracket before they fell in Week 9 to Steel Valley. Washington also lost to Steel Valley earlier in the season. This is a matchup of strength-on-strength as South A is the highest-scoring team in 2A (46.8 points per game) while Washington has the stingiest defense (9.4 points against per game). Similar...
