Having attended South Fayette football games since he was little, Drew Welhorsky has gotten an up-close view of many of the prolific passers that have come through the program over the years.
Welhorsky is next in line, only his skillset is a little different than his predecessors.
Not only does Welhorsky pose a big threat to opposing defenses with his arm, but also this teen who doubles as one of the WPIAL’s top lacrosse players looks like he’s going to make a major impact with his legs, as well.
South Fayette went to the Wel(horsky) often Friday in a 26-0 Week 0 win against visiting Chartiers Valley. A 6-foot-1, 185-pound junior, Welhorsky completed 18-of-22 passes for 248 yards and a touchdown while adding 22 carries for 174 yards and three touchdowns.
“I’ve been going to games since I was little and seeing all the great quarterbacks like [Brett] Brumbaugh. They’ve always been a huge inspiration,” Welhorsky said. “I’m excited to be the next in line, but I’m also excited to change it up with my style of running.”
Welhorsky, the JV starter a season ago, showed off his wheels by scoring on touchdown runs of 6, 36 and 5 yards as he accounted for more than 80% of South Fayette’s rushing production in the game. This type of running success by a quarterback is far from being the norm at South Fayette, which typically churns out talents who are more of the pocket passer variety. Brumbaugh, for instance, threw for 11,084 career yards, No. 2 in state in history, but ran sparingly. Dating back to 2009, no South Fayette quarterback has rushed for more than 353 yards in a season. Welhorsky could best that before the calendar flips to September.
“He’s very athletic, and you can see that on the lacrosse field,” said first-year South Fayette coach Marty Spieler, who was the quarterbacks coach for the Lions last season. “He allows us to have some flexibility with our quarterback run game and straight hand-off run game. It puts defenses in a bind.”
Welhorsky was also a marksman with his passing. He threw only four incompletions on the night, three of them Spieler said came on throw-aways. Welhorsky tossed a 9-yard touchdown to Tyson Wright, one of nine different receivers he connected with. It was actually Welhorsky’s third career start. He started the first two games of his freshman season in place of a starter who had been suspended. Coincidentally, the first of those starts also came against Chartiers Valley in what was a 35-0 South Fayette win.
“When you have a kid who is athletically really good, you have that inkling that when the lights turn on, he’s going to do well. But you want to see it. And when the lights came on, Drew stepped up,” Spieler said of Welhorsky, who also saw some varsity time at receiver last season.
Welhorsky has been playing football since kindergarten, but it’s the sport he has played since fifth grade in which he’s already made a major splash. As an attack in lacrosse, Welhorsky was an all-WPIAL selection as a sophomore when he was the leading scorer for a South Fayette team that reached the WPIAL Class 2A championship and PIAA semifinals. Welhorsky collected 92 goals and 69 assists for a total of 161 points.
Welhorsky is one of four lacrosse players on South Fayette’s varsity football team this fall. Another of them, senior Travis Watkins, is a starting linebacker who was the starting goalie for the lacrosse team.
“[Lacrosse] helps me with my agility and speed, and my shiftiness,” said Welhorsky, whose father, Mike, was a linebacker at Slippery Rock.
Hein shines
Mars made a trip to the Sunshine State and took down Boone, Fla., 47-35, on Saturday morning. In “Hein sight,” Boone should have probably paid better attention to Mars’ star receiver.
Mars junior Gabe Hein had an out-of-this-world performance in the victory, hauling in eight receptions for 256 yards and four touchdowns. Hein’s scores came on pass plays of 8, 80, 84 and 30 yards from Luke Goodworth, who completed 13-of-21 passes for 391 yards and five touchdowns.
Hein putting up big receiving numbers is nothing new. A season ago, he led the Planets and ranked among the WPIAL Class 4A leaders with 43 catches for 774 yards and nine touchdowns. Hein was a quick starter last season, too, as he had 10 catches for 160 yards and a touchdown in a Week 0 loss to Montour.
Mars also got a strong performance from running back Eric Kasperowicz Jr., who had 19 carries for 117 yards and two touchdowns.
Ellwood City RB a record breaker
A kid with two last names broke two school records in his team’s season opener. Oh, and he scored the winning touchdown in overtime, too.
Ellwood City senior Elijah Palmer-McCane had a memorable performance in his team’s 14-7 win at Laurel. Palmer-McCane became the program’s all-time leading career rusher and scorer after running for 145 yards and two touchdowns, the second of which came on the winning 3-yard run in overtime. Palmer-McCane upped his career rushing total to 2,907 yards.
Palmer-McCane is hoping to eventually become a 1,000-yard rusher for the third time in his career. A three-year starter, he ran for 1,156 in 2022 and 1,485 last season. He has scored 34 career touchdowns.
Big kick
The WPIAL’s most notable kicker, North Allegheny senior and Alabama recruit Peter Notaro, booted a 40-yard field goal on Friday, but a kicker from Southmoreland went 10 yards farther to break a school record — one owned by a former Steeler — that had stood for 50 years.
Senior Jake Kaylor kicked a 50-yard field goal just before the half in Southmoreland’s 52-20 win against Valley. That broke the previous record of 48 yards set by David Trout in 1974. Trout went on to play at Pitt and later played two seasons with the Steelers.
Kaylor was excellent as a junior when he was 6 of 7 on field-goal attempts (his long was 39 yards) and 28 of 32 on extra-point tries.
PUP Bites
• Samir Crosby accounted for all six of his team’s touchdowns in helping Greensburg Central Catholic rally from 22 points down to beat host Shady Side Academy, 46-40. A junior, Crosby ran for 341 yards and four touchdowns and passed for 126 yards and two scores. Making the outing all the more impressive was that Crosby was making his first career start at quarterback. He was named all-conference as a wide receiver and defensive back last season.
• Crosby’s rushing effort wasn’t the biggest of Week 0 in the WPIAL. The Class 1A Tri-County South Conference is no stranger to producing prolific running backs, and the latest might be California senior Lee Qualk, who ran for 365 yards and six touchdowns on 37 carries to carry the Trojans to a 62-26 win against Serra Catholic. Qualk is also a track and field standout who won a WPIAL Class 2A title in the long jump last season.
• Hopewell freshman Brody Rock scored a touchdown on the very first play of his high school career, taking the opening kickoff 85 yards for a touchdown in a 38-25 win against Riverside. Another Hopewell freshman, quarterback James Armstrong, threw for two touchdowns and also rushed for one.
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.