Steel City Blitz
The 2024 WPIAL football season is just days away from kicking off. You can check out all of our conference previews here and WPIAL Blitz Season Preview on YouTube. While last year was the first time since 1992 that the WPIAL did not win a state championship so no teams carry an overall winning streak into this season, there are plenty of other impressive streaks still alive. The most impressive streak is Aliquippa and Thomas Jefferson who have both reached the playoffs in 30 straight years. Aliquippa’s incredible run of 16 straight championship game appearances came to an end last year when the Quips lost to Thomas Jefferson in the semifinals.
Here’s a look at the current streaks for WPIAL teams entering 2025 – both the good and the bad of wins, losses, playoff streaks, and playoff droughts. Of note, due to the COVID pandemic there were a number of games cancelled in 2020 and 2021. We are only counting games actually played towards these streaks.
We start by looking at the teams that ended the 2024 season on a high note and are carrying winning streaks into 2025. There were only two WPIAL teams that claimed State titles, so this list is rather short.
1t. West Mifflin – 3
1t. Carmichaels – 3
The WPIAL did not claim any state titles last season, so none of the playoff teams carry winning streaks into this season. The only non-playoff teams to win more than one game at the end of the regular season were West Mifflin and Carmichaels, who both won their final three outings. Both missed out on the Wild Card and enter this year carrying the longest winning streaks in the WPIAL. However, if you don’t count the teams that fell in the State playoffs….
1. Fort Cherry – 28
2. Thomas Jefferson – 13*
3. South Park – 11
4. Central Catholic – 10
5t. Pine-Richland – 4
5t. Avonworth – 4
Fort Cherry is the two-time defending WPIAL 1A Champions. The Rangers went undefeated the last two seasons, putting their winning streak over WPIAL competition at 28 games. Fort Cherry’s last loss to a WPIAL opponent was in the 2022 playoffs when they lost to Rochester in the quarterfinals. Thomas Jefferson went undefeated in their run to the WPIAL 4A title, a run which included a forfeit by Ringgold. South Park lost their Week 1 non-conference game to 3A Deer Lakes before running through the 2A competition en route to their first WPIAL title in two decades. Central Catholic lost their first two games of last season, to St. Frances Academy and Pine-Richland, then rattled off 10 straight victories to win the WPIAL title. Pine-Richland, the defending 5A Champions, lost to 6A rivals North Allegheny in Week 8 after beating Central Catholic earlier in the season. Avonworth lost to Beaver in Week 9 by 20 points which dropped the Lopes to the 5 seed in the playoffs before...
