Aliquippa was down a Tikey on Friday night.
Tikey Hayes, the team’s bruising senior running back and Penn State recruit, sat out the Quips’ game against Mars with an injury.
So, instead of Hayes and sophomore running mate Sa’Nir Brooks hitting the Fightin’ Planets with a 1-2 combination, it was Brooks who delivered body blow after body blow before ultimately landing the knockout punch.
Making his first career start, Brooks (5 feet 10, 190 pounds) finished with 19 carries for 150 yards and three touchdowns while leading WPIAL Class 4A No. 1 Aliquippa to a 42-17 win. The Quips led Mars only by 15-11 at the half, but the Quips outscored Mars, 27-6, in the second half with Brooks accounting for two second-half scoring runs.
Brooks’ second impressive outing in as many games showed that the Quips (2-0) once again have a devastating duo at running back and that the Quips will continue to be strong at the position next season even after Hayes leaves for Happy Valley.
“He’s a great player,” Aliquippa coach Vashawn Patrick said of Brooks. “He just stepped into the role. He embraced it, and he got his shine on. We need guys like that to step up when key guys go down, and Sa’Nir took full advantage of his opportunity.”
Hayes, the program’s all-time leading rusher who surpassed 6,000 career yards a week earlier, is a little banged up, Patrick said. If it had been up to Hayes, Patrick added, the talented senior would have played against Mars, but the coaching staff decided to give him the night off. Patrick called Hayes “questionable” for the Quips’ non-conference game at Penn Hills (1-3) this week.
“He’s nursing an injury,” Patrick said. “There’s no specific timetable of when he’ll come back. He wanted to go, but we have a long vigorous season, so I just want to make sure he’s healthy at the end of the year.”
By the end of the year, Brooks should be a household name. Brooks played junior high football at Aliquippa before playing his freshman season at Central Catholic, where he ran for 164 yards and a touchdown on 28 carries before suffering an injury in the third game that ended his season. But Brooks, along with classmate and heavily recruited defensive back Larry Moon, transferred back to Aliquippa prior to this season.
Brooks made his presence felt in the Quips’ opener when he rushed for 100 yards on eight carries, highlighted by a 62-yard touchdown run on the final play of the first half, in a 46-20 win at Avonworth. He had another long touchdown called back because of a penalty. Following his latest performance against Mars, Brooks lifted his season numbers to 250 yards and four touchdowns on 27 carries. He’s averaging 9.2 yards per carry. Add that to what Hayes already brings to the table (he ran for 168 yards and three scores against Avonworth), and the Quips certainly are loaded at the position.
“You can call them thunder and lightning or 1a and 1b. They both are hard workers and they complement each other,” Patrick said. “Whatever Tikey does, Sa’Nir tries to outdo him. Whatever Sa’Nir does, Tikey tries to outdo him. And they’re just great teammates. They talk and they communicate and let each other know what they see and what they’re doing wrong so they can take full advantage of their opportunities when they get a chance to run the ball.”
Just like Hayes, Brooks appears to have a future playing at a high level in college. Brooks, who attended Saturday’s Pitt-West Virginia game along with Moon, has offers from West Virginia, Miami (Ohio) and Akron.
“I know he’s on a lot of radars,” Patrick said. “He’s going to flourish this year in our system, and I can’t wait to see what else he has in store.”
Hopper hops into record book
Montour quarterback Trey Hopper played well in his team’s first three games, tossing four touchdowns to just one interception while totaling 465 yards through the air. But in Friday’s win against Knoch, Hopper reached rare air — as in a place where no Montour quarterback had gone before.
Hopper, a senior and first-year starter, completed 12-of-20 passes for a school-record 436 yards and four touchdowns in a 44-14 triumph that improved Montour to 4-0. Hopper, who averaged a whopping 36.3 yards per completion, threw scoring strikes of 25 and 66 yards to Andrew Alston, 70 yards to Daniel Batch, and 74 yards to James Bundridge.
With that performance, Hopper (his first name is actually Dennis and his middle name is Trey) hopped into the top spot in the Montour record book, eclipsing the previous yardage mark of 404 achieved by the quarterback he replaced, Jake Wolfe, in 2022. For the season, he now ranks among the WPIAL leaders with 901 yards and eight touchdowns.
Paschl steps up
Bethel Park’s Tanner Pfeuffer and Ryan Petras formed one of the top pass-catch combos in the WPIAL last season, with Petras grabbing 52 catches for 734 yards and scoring 14 touchdowns. Petras has yet to play this season as he recovers from shoulder surgery, but that hasn’t stopped Pfeuffer and the Bethel Park passing attack from getting surgical on opposing defenses. The emergence of Mitchell Paschl is a big reason for that.
Paschl, a 5-11 senior wide receiver, had another strong outing as Bethel Park improved to 4-0 courtesy of a 62-14 win against West Mifflin. Paschl hauled in five catches for 119 yards and scored on Pfeuffer touchdown tosses of 59 and 32 yards. This came after Paschl had nine catches for 130 yards and four touchdowns a week earlier. For the season, Paschl has collected 18 catches for 364 yards and his eight receiving touchdowns lead the WPIAL. The Black Hawks have pumped in a WPIAL-leading 51.7 points a game.
Paschl has already surpassed his season totals from last season when he finished third on the team with 14 catches for 319 yards and two touchdowns.
PUP Bites
• The No. 2 scoring offense in the WPIAL belongs to Highlands, which averages 51.3 points and has already been involved in some wild games this season. The Golden Rams opened with a 38-37 overtime loss to Armstrong before outlasting Elizabeth Forward, 53-52, in three overtimes. They then topped East Allegheny, 64-36, on Friday to improve to 2-1. Highlands has been getting outstanding play from senior quarterback Menage Lucas, who accounted for six touchdowns (three passing and three rushing) against East Allegheny and has rushed for 10 scores on the season. A season ago, the Golden Rams averaged 23 points a game when they finished 6-5. How good are the Golden Rams? We’ll find out a lot about them the next two weeks when they play at Class 3A Allegheny 7 Conference foes Imani Christian (4-0) and Deer Lakes (4-0). Imani Christian is ranked No. 1 in Class 3A and Deer Lakes is No. 4.
• Unleash the Hounds! Monessen is 4-0 for the first time since 2011. In what proved to be a “you never know” type of result, Monessen rallied to squeak past Serra Catholic, 20-14, for its latest win. Monessen entered the game with the top scoring offense in the WPIAL, while Serra Catholic came in with the worst scoring defense. Monessen’s Ty Kershaw ran for two scores, including the go-ahead 1-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter, to give him a WPIAL-leading 18 touchdowns on the season. Monessen last began a season 5-0 in 2007, when it won a conference title and advanced to the WPIAL Class 1A semifinals. Getting to 5-0 this time will be tough. The Greyhounds face a tall task Friday when they host No. 1 and defending WPIAL Class 1A champion Fort Cherry (4-0).
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.