Dec 3, 2025
Wade
Two of the most dominant Pennsylvania high school football programs in Class 1A over the past 20 years will meet Thursday for the state championship at Cumberland Valley’s Chapman Field in Mechanicsburg when Bishop Guilfoyle Academy takes on Clairton at 1 p.m.
The District 6 champion Marauders are in the PIAA championship for the eighth time since 2014 and have already won six, including two against Clairton in 2014 and 2016.
The Bears, the WPIAL champions, are playing in their eighth state final since 2008 and won four straight from 2009 through 2012 but haven’t played in one since losing to BG, 17-0, in 2016.
“Both teams have to be in the conversation for sure,” Bishop Guilfoyle coach Justin Wheeler said. “Clairton with Tyler Boyd (former Pitt and NFL receiver) and what they did winning four in a row before us. Then, for the past decade, we have been good. They are starting a resurgence back to where they were. I think when you look at both of our programs, they are pretty similar other than maybe the NFL players — they have a couple more of them.”
Obviously none of the players on either team were involved in the previous matchups, but some of them like star senior BG athlete Jake Kissell, Wheeler’s nephew, were around the games as children.
“Watching as a kid as BG played Clairton in 2014 and 2016, you could see they were fast and coached well,” Kissell said. “They have tons of talent all across the board. We have one of the best coaching staffs in the state. We’re going to put together a good gameplan, and we’ll be ready on Thursday. It’s going to be a fight, but we have played a lot of tough games — and I think we’ll be ready.”
Clairton coach Wayne Wade said his team also has players on this year’s roster who have been around the team a long time but that the games against Bishop Guilfoyle were so long ago that they don’t mean much to this year’s team.
“It’s a little too far removed,” Wade said. “Some of the kids may have been with us as managers and just been around, because that’s what we do. We invite our little guys around all the time. The guys that played in that game like the Lamont Wades and Harrison Drehers and all of those kids — they are still around and still part of our little league program. It’s been mentioned, but they are kind of too far removed from it. This is their year, and they are just looking to win a state championship.”
The Bears never fell off a cliff as a program — their worst season in 20 years was a 6-6 mark in 2022 — but they haven’t been among the best teams in the state at 1A until last year when they suffered their first loss of the season by a single point in the WPIAL championship to Fort Cherry in a game that was also a PIAA quarterfinal.
This season, Fort Cherry was the top seed but was upset by Laurel, which played Clairton in the WPIAL championship. The Bears won, 8-6, the same weekend BG squeaked past Westinghouse, 7-6.
Wade said he sees a lot in BG that he did in 2014 and 2016.
“Everything we have seen from them in the past,” Wade said. “We played them a few times before in the state championship game. They are a well-coached team, a well-disciplined team. We’re just going to have to make plays. Watching them on film, I thought the Westinghouse team had more team speed than them. It kind of showed. Westinghouse had a touchdown called back and a couple penalties late that took the game away from them, but I think we’re just as good or better than Westinghouse, so hopefully our defense shows up to stop their run and we stay away from those penalties.”
Clairton lost its season opener to Imani Christian and has won 14 straight. The Bears won nine straight games by shutout (10 if you include a forfeit win over Shady Side Academy) and have outscored their opponents, 677-80, which will likely lead a lot of people to view them as the favorite on Thursday.
But as Wheeler pointed out, that was also the case in 2014 when Bishop Guilfoyle was making its first-ever appearance in a state football final.
“Especially in 2014, I don’t think anybody picked us to win,” Wheeler said. “It might be similar this year with how talented they are and with as much skill and college offers as their kids have. But when I reflect on that game, we played really well as a group. We didn’t back down and played hard. We’re going to use our experience and some of those lessons we learned and come in and play well.”
In addition to Clairton and Bishop Guilfoyle, Steelton-Highspire certainly has to be considered among the top teams in 1A over the last two decades although the Rollers are currently playing in 2A. They have won five state championships since 2007.
But Wade says teams like Clairton and Steel High are tough to compare to a school like Bishop Guilfoyle Academy.
“It’s a big game,” Wade said. “They have a great program, but they are a little different than us, though. They are a Catholic school. We are a public school. Rosters and things like that are different. I think they have maybe 42 players on their roster. We’re dressing 25. That’s a big difference for us, but I couldn’t be more proud of this team we’re taking to the state championship game on Thursday. It really doesn’t matter for us the opponent. It’s about what we’re doing. It just happens to be Bishop Guilfoyle this year.”
Penn State Altoona senior forward Avana Sayles was chosen as the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference’s …
Men: PSU Shenango at SFU Tipoff: 7 p.m., DeGol Arena, Loretto Records: Penn State Shenango (5-3) at Saint …
MEYERSDALE — The Northern Bedford boys basketball team improved to 2-1 Tuesday night with a 59-52 win at …
PITTSBURGH — Rashaun Agee scored 21 points and grabbed 13 rebounds to lead Texas A&M to an 81-73 victory over …
Copyright © 2025 Central Pennsylvania Newspapers, LLC | https://www.altoonamirror.com | 301 Cayuga Ave., Altoona, PA 16602 | 814-946-7411
