Steel City Blitz
The 2025 WPIAL playoffs began last week with first round games in 1A through 5A. In 3A, 12 teams made the playoffs with the top four 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 top four teams in the 3A bracket received first round byes. Defending Champion Avonworth is the top seed after their undefeated season. Imani Christian, last year’s top seed, also went unbeaten this year and received the #2 seed. The four teams with first round byes will have home games in the quarterfinals. In the opening round, Hopewell earned their first playoff victory since 2012.
Check out this week’s edition of the WPIAL Blitz Show where we broke down all of the playoff matchups!
Avonworth is the defending WPIAL Champions and has reached the finals in three straight seasons. Freeport won a playoff game for the second straight season. The Antelopes have rolled through the regular season, outscoring opponents by an average of 31 points per game. Their balanced offense has been keyed by the play of QB Carson Bellinger (1723 yards, 24 TDs) and RB Dimitri Velisaris (1212 yards, 17 TDs). Dynamic slot back Luca Neal is the team’s leading receiver (758 yards), second-leading rusher (284 yards), and second-leading scorer (15 total TDs). Sophomore
WR Jaden Jones (539 yards, 7 TDs) has had a number of D1 visits lately including Ohio State and Florida State. Freeport has a dynamic tandem in dual-threat QB Drew Ross and RB Amos Glenn who scored the third-most touchdowns in the WPIAL this season with 30. Glenn compiled 1160 rushing yards, 208 receiving yards and had five return touchdowns (including a punt return last week). Ross played through injury this year and was still able to put up 728 passing yards and 9 TDs along with 213 rushing yards and 7 more TDs.
This is a rematch of last year’s quarterfinal shootout which Elizabeth Forward won on a last-second field goal. This will be the fourth playoff meeting between the two schools with EF winning the prior two. The Warriors have reached the semifinals in four of the last five years. This is a matchup of two of the three highest-scoring teams in 3A with North Catholic averaging 45 points per game and Elizabeth Forward just behind at 44.7 per game. This game also features two of the top quarterbacks in the WPIAL. For the second straight season, North Catholic QB Joey Felitsky (2870 yards 39 TDs) won the WPIAL passing title. In their opening round victory over Burrell, Felitsky had just one incompletion and threw for over 430 yards and 6 TDs. Elizabeth Forward’s Ryan Messina was third in the classification in passing (1951 yards, 23 TDs) and more of a dual-threat, also leading his team in rushing (682 yards, 10 TDs). Messina has six...
