Steel City Blitz
The WPIAL regular season concludes this weekend! On Saturday evening the playoff brackets will be announced and we will be on our way towards crowning this year’s champions. There are seven conference titles and 12 guaranteed playoff spots left to be decided this week. Check out my WPIAL Playoff Scenarios breakdown for an analysis of what every team still in the running needs to do this week to get in. Additionally, I looked at the 16 Wild Card spots that will be awarded by the Selection Committee and analyzed the teams in the running.
On this week’s edition of the WPIAL Blitz Show, we recapped all of the Week 8 action, ran through all of the conference standings and discussed this week’s WPIAL Blitz Statewide Rankings. Our WPIAL Blitz Show Player of the Week from Week 8 was Imani Christian QB Gabe Jenkins. In the Saints victory over Burrell, Jenkins had over 380 yards of total offense and 6 total touchdowns. We’ll be back on Monday night at 9:30 this week for another great show! Tune in on the SSP Network on YouTube.
BIG NEWS – I will be on the KDKA Radio Postgame Show on Friday night alongside the WPIAL Insider to break down all of the results live as they happen. Tune in on the Audacy app around 9:30pm! You can also check out my guest spot on the PA Today Sports podcast from earlier this week (starting around the 1:06:00 mark).
As playoff races wind down, keep an eye on my WPIAL Standings Page. Without further ado, here are the Week 9 Games of the Week!
The winner of this game clinches a playoff spot in 6A and potentially gets the #3 seed, avoiding a first round matchup with Central Catholic. Norwin would lock up the #3 seed with a win and could also get into the playoffs with a loss and a Canon-Mac loss (in which case they would be the #4 seed). Mt. Lebanon has to win to get in. Lebo would be the #3 seed with a win and Canon-Mac loss or the #4 seed with a win and a Canon-Mac win. Mt. Lebanon rebounded from an 0-5 start to the season to win 2 conference games and put themselves in position to have a shot at the playoffs. The Blue Devils rely almost exclusively on dual-threat QB Patrick Smith who last week became the 24th player in WPIAL history to join the 1000/1000 club. Smith has thrown for 1034 yards and 4 TDs and run for 1170 yards and 13 TDs. He has five receivers with over 100 yards, led by Maxton Siegel (281 yards, 1 TD), Colin Kramer (169 yards), and Jaxson Driscoll (148 yards, 1 TD). Mt. Lebanon is the lowest-scoring team in 6A, averaging just 15 points per game while Norwin has the second-stingiest defense. If Mt. Lebanon is going to pull the upset they...
