North Allegheny has asserted its dominance over Western Pennsylvania’s premier Catholic school football team with victories in consecutive seasons against Central Catholic in the WPIAL Class 6A championship.
Now coach Art Walker’s Tigers have turned their attention to the East.
North Allegheny (13-1) will face Philadelphia Catholic League powerhouse St. Joseph’s Prep (12-1) in the PIAA Class 6A championship at 7 p.m. Saturday at Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg.
The District 12 champion Hawks — ranked No. 8 in the country in USA Today’s Top 25 poll — have appeared in the PIAA title game in each of the past eight seasons and have achieved state supremacy seven times since 2013.
“We’re definitely the underdogs,” Walker said. “We know that. We know what they’ve done the last decade. We know what they’ve been in the game. Everybody talks about them and they’ve been talking about them since the beginning of the year to be the state champs.”
That doesn’t mean North Allegheny will be entering the game without confidence in its ability to dethrone the defending PIAA Class 6A champions and their roster chock full of Division I talent.
The Tigers are vying to be the first team to beat St. Joseph’s Prep in a PIAA title game since Mt. Lebanon upset the Hawks in 2021.
“You’ve got to take that in stride and understand that you’re still going to play the game,” Walker said. “We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t pretty darn good, too. That’s the mentality we have to have.
“Everybody is talking about how good they are, and every once in a while you just have to stop and remind your kids, ‘So are you guys.’ We’re just controlling what we can control.”
While North Allegheny might not have the same championship pedigree as St. Joseph’s Prep, the Tigers will be looking to win their fourth state championship in school history.
North Allegheny won PIAA titles in 1990, 2010 and 2012.
With a victory Saturday, the Tigers would join Central Catholic, Clairton, Aliquippa and Thomas Jefferson as the only programs in the WPIAL with four or more state championships.
Walker – who also won a PIAA title at Central Catholic in 2004 – also would become just the third WPIAL coach with at least four state championships. Thomas Jefferson’s Bill Cherpak has five PIAA titles, while former Clairton coach Tom Nola has four.
It’s the kind of success that has made St. Joseph’s coach Tim Roken take notice.
“They’re a very high-powered offense,” he said of North Allegheny. “It seems like throughout the year they’re pretty consistent in scoring a lot of points and a defense that’s not giving up a lot of points, maybe with the exception of the shootout with Central Catholic a couple weeks ago.
“They are tested.”
Two of the state’s top dual-threat quarterbacks will be testing both defenses Saturday.
St. Joseph’s senior Samaj Jones, a Cincinnati recruit, will make his third PIAA championship start. He has completed 106-of-161 passes for 1,697 yards and 6 touchdowns, while rushing for 331 yards and 11 scores.
Walker said games against Central Catholic’s Payton Wehner and Harrisburg’s Shawn Lee have prepared the Tigers for Jones.
“This quarterback is bigger than those guys,” Walker said. “We know he can be a physical runner more so, even inside the tackles, but we think the teams that we played throughout the year — there’s a part of all those teams that have a characteristic of what this team has.”
North Allegheny senior Logan Kushner, meanwhile, has completed 81-of-149 passes for 1,589 yards, 23 touchdowns and just 3 interceptions. He has also rushed for a team-high 1,232 yards and 21 scores.
“You can’t let him get outside of the pocket,” Roken said. “He’s shown a great ability to, one, be able to hurt you outside of the pocket, not just with his legs, but his ability to be able to keep his eyes down the field and connect with some of his receivers. They do a great job with some scramble-drill situations.
“Then we’ve got to be able to give him a lot of different looks to confuse him up front.”
The Tigers are led in the passing game by wide receivers Khiryn Boyd and Evan Lyon.
Boyd has a team-high 26 catches for 705 yards and 9 touchdowns, while Lyon has hauled in 10 catches for 274 yards and 5 scores.
In addition to its passing attack, North Allegheny relies heavily upon running back Tyree Alualu, son of former Steelers defensive lineman Tyson Alualu. Tyree has rushed for 881 yards and 13 touchdowns, while also grabbing 11 catches for 130 yards and 2 additional scores.
Roken said his team is focused on controlling the line of scrimmage.
“Big-time games, state championship games, you know the game is going to come down to the line of scrimmage,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure of that, especially with two teams that like to make sure they establish the run. We’re a team like that and they’re a team like that. We’ve got to make sure that we create penetration up front, give them a lot of different looks there.”
For Walker, dealing with St. Joseph’s will come down to contending with its considerable depth.
The Hawks offense utilizes three running backs, who get their fair share of carries.
“They have depth and they have speed and they have size,” Walker said. “We know their history, especially over the past decade, the things that they’ve done and accomplished and all of that, so we’ve got to worry about us. That’s the No. 1 thing.”
Isaiah West has rushed for a team-high 586 yards and 7 touchdowns on 82 carries, while Erik Sanchez has 521 yards and 6 scores on 51 carries and Kahseim Phillips has accrued 513 yards and 3 touchdowns on 58 carries.
The St. Joseph’s passing game also is littered with talent in its receiving corp.
Kentucky recruit David Washington has caught 27 passes for 548 yards and 5 touchdowns, while West Virginia recruit Brandon Rehmann has 23 catches for 430 yards and 6 scores. Cincinnati recruit Elijah Jones has managed 26 grabs for 313 yards and 6 touchdowns.
Add in the type of talent the Hawks boast on defense and they constitute a considerable foe for North Allegheny.
St. Joseph’s linebackers are playmakers in their own right. Junior Cameron Smith has a team-high 68 tackles and 4½ sacks, while classmate Anthony Sacca has 59 tackles with 1 sack, 1 fumble recovery and 1 interception. Senior Nick McGlynn has 45 tackles, 4½ sacks, 2 interceptions returned for touchdowns and 1 fumble recovery.
McGlynn is a Towson recruit, while Sacca has a number of scholarship offers from Power 5 schools, including Pitt and Penn State.
Senior defensive lineman Sean McNulty has 56 tackles with a team-high 9½ sacks, and sophomore linemate Alex Haskell has 31 tackles and 7½ sacks.
“They’re big, fast,” Walker said. “They’ve got a lot of talent. We know they’re really good.”
John is a copy editor and page designer at the Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at jsanta@unionprogress.com.