Central Catholic star Xxavier Thomas smiled and shook his head when a reporter asked him if he and his fellow seniors are hungry to win a WPIAL title for the first time in what is their final chance this fall.
“I don’t know about hungry, but I’m starving right now,” said Thomas, a Penn State cornerback recruit. “Getting that ring, putting that on my finger, that would mean the world to me to go out there and win a WPIAL championship with my boys.”
The Vikings went out and earned their biggest win of the season Friday, and although it didn’t bring them a championship and was only a regular-season game, the victory only strengthened the belief held by Thomas and his friends that this team will win its first WPIAL crown since 2020.
In the latest showdown between the WPIAL’s two Class 6A heavyweights, No. 2 Central Catholic picked off a pair of passes that led to touchdowns midway through the third quarter and propelled the Vikings to a come-from-behind 27-14 win against No. 1 North Allegheny in front of a large crowd at Baldwin High School.
The win by Central Catholic (4-2, 3-0) came 10 months after the Vikings fell to North Allegheny (5-1, 2-1) in the WPIAL championship game for the second year in a row, a contest in which the Vikings’ defense was torched for 44 points and 465 total yards, including 358 on ground. But it was a different story Friday, with the Central Catholic defense surrendering only 14 points and 206 total yards, including only 65 yards rushing on 32 carries. North Allegheny had scored 42 and 36 points in winning its first two conference games.
“I think the emphasis to stop the run was there,” Central Catholic coach Ryan Lehmeier said. “When we went into halftime, defensively, I couldn’t be more proud of just the way they responded. Being down in the hole. Understanding. Being able to assess the situation at halftime. This is what we need to do. This is how we need to do it. And then they went out and did it. That’s where we’ve really matured in the last year.”
A pair of seniors, Thomas and Duke recruit Bradley Gompers, are the headliners of the Central Catholic defense, but they are far from the only talented players on that unit. That showed against North Allegheny with freshman defensive back Chrys Black finishing with a team-high 12 tackles and sophomore defensive back Zac Gleason and junior linebacker Colsen Gatten collecting third-quarter interceptions that quickly turned a 14-11 hafltime deficit into a 25-14 lead.
Gleason started the pick party when he intercepted North Allegheny quarterback Brady Brinkley with 7:40 left in the third quarter. Less than a minute later, Elijah Faulkner went right up the gut and scored on an 18-yard touchdown run to help Central Catholic surge ahead. Faulkner finished with a game-high 127 yards on 27 carries. On North Allegheny’s next possession, Brinkley was intercepted again, this time by Gatten, who took scoring matters into his own hands by returning the pass 25 yards for a touchdown to extend the Central Catholic advantage to 25-14 with 5:39 left in the third. The Vikings would add a safety in the final quarter.
Gatten, who has scholarship offers from the likes of Pitt, Penn State, Notre Dame and Michigan, credited the improved defense with the team switching from a 3-4 formation to a 4-3 scheme this season, but added that it goes beyond that.
“I think we’re mentally tougher this year,” he said. “We knew that we had to finish this one. I think it really showed in the third and fourth quarter. We finished.”
Central Catholic, which won its fourth game in a row, registered four sacks in the game, with Ashton Blatt accounting for two of them and Gompers and Cole Bayer the others.
There was also a kicking star for Central Catholic, as senior Billy Lech boomed a 54-yard field goal in the second quarter. It was a school record and fell 1 yard short of the WPIAL record of 55 set by East Allegheny’s Josh Miller in 2002.
Count Lech, a three-year starter and Akron recruit, among the Central Catholic seniors who are not just hungry, but starving for a WPIAL title. Since 2013, this is the first time Central Catholic has gone more than two seasons without winning a WPIAL championship, and every senior class since then has won at least one title.
“We tell ourselves that it’s a school of tradition,” said Lech, whose previous career long was 45 yards. “We haven’t done anything to build this tradition yet, and I think that this WPIAL championship means everything to every player on that field. Upperclassmen, underclassmen, we all buy in. We all fight together. I think there’s a true togetherness on this team that isn’t seen anywhere else. It’s a true brotherhood out here.”
While Central Catholic’s win was impressive and will move the Vikings to the No. 1 spot in the WPIAL Class 6A rankings, it comes with a catch — Central Catholic beat North Allegheny in the regular season last year, as well, only to come up short when it met the Tigers with the championship on the line.
“How we’re going to solve that is not hang our hats too high,” said Thomas, also a track and field standout and former WPIAL triple jump champion. “We can’t get too complacent. Their head coach is always making some new corrections and adjustments leading up to that game, so we’ve got to make sure we do the same on our end. We have to expect anything.”
North Allegheny coach Art Walker was denied his 250th career win. Walker, who began his career at Central Catholic and has the second-most wins of any active WPIAL coach, will again shoot for the milestone win when his Tigers travel to Mt. Lebanon next Friday.
Chances are these teams will meet again in November, and there’s a good chance that will come in the WPIAL championship game. Central Catholic players and coaches screamed “50 days” after the game. Fifty days from Friday just so happens to be Nov. 16, the date of the Class 6A final.
“I am very confident [we’ll play them],” Thomas said. “And in my opinion, I really hope we do, too. I want another shot at them real bad.”
Added Gatten, “It’s the best of the best when we play them. I think we have the best and I think they have the best. We have the best coaches and they have the best coaches. So I think anytime you get that, it’s a dogfight. And that’s how it is every time. We have much respect for them.”
Gatten and the rest of Central Catholic’s underclassmen would love nothing more than to help bring that senior class its first WPIAL title 50 days from now.
“Those guys have went through a lot,” Gatten said. “They went through a coaching staff change. Those guys have gone through everything. It would mean the world to me if we can win a ring for the senior class.”
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.