Nov 3, 2014 6 min read

For the fourth straight year, Tri-County South Conference teams were swept in the first round of the WPIAL Class A football playoffs.

That’s 0-16, if you’re counting.

It’s a disturbing trend.

Many people point to low enrollment numbers at Tri-County South schools as the reason behind the shortcomings.

That might be one of the biggest misconceptions in WPIAL water-cooler talk.

Beth-Center has the fourth-largest enrollment for Class A football schools, yet the Bulldogs continue to flounder in big games. After defeating Greensburg Central Catholic in September, there was a buzz surrounding the program and its workhorse tailback junior Anthony Welsh.

Could this be the year Beth-Center advances to the WPIAL quarterfinals? That popular question was answered Friday night in a stunning one-point loss to Riverside.

Yes, Riverside has the largest enrollment of any Class A school, but pointing to the number of satudents can no longer be an excuse. Top-seeded North Catholic has one of the smallest enrollments, while No. 2 Clairton is producing eye-popping offensive numbers with the second-smallest enrollment in the Eastern Conference. The Tri-County South’s enrollment numbers are very similar to the other three conferences.

So, what is the reason for the Tri-County South’s playoff woes?

The programs are wildly inconsistent from year to year with different teams constantly pushing their way into the playoffs. Parity is usually a good thing in WPIAL football, but in the Tri-County South, it’s a troubling trend. The problems usually arise when a program relies heavily on a strong senior class and when those players depart, there is a large lull until the team can compete again. That’s a testament to the lack of development for underclassmen, which can be attributed to the elimination of junior varsity teams at some schools. Programs in most areas reload. They don’t have to wait two-to-three years after a group of good players graduates. That seems to be the case with the Tri-County South.

After Beth-Center and Frazier, the other seven teams are constantly battling for the third and fourth playoff spots. The playoff seeding committee has taken notice. Though third-place Mapletown lost just two regular-season games, the Maples had to face fifth-seeded Avonworth in the first round and were shut out.

Playing non-conference games against some of the less-talented opponents in the district doesn’t help the Tri-County South. Teams like Beth-Center and Frazier are rarely tested during the regular season in conference play. Their toughest regular-season games are often against each other. On paper, Mapletown’s regular-season finale against Monessen seemed like a great out-of-conference test, but the Greyhounds had a down year and the Maples’ 24-6 victory doesn’t look so impressive.

The talk of social media following Friday night’s playoff games surrounded Avella’s loss to North Catholic. “Farm schools” can’t compete with catholic schools was one often retweeted comment.

That’s a fair assessment. North Catholic does not have a middle school program, so plucking talent from local districts is inevitable. I’m a native of Youngstown, Ohio, where Cardinal Mooney and Youngstown Ursuline use the same methods to build their teams.

Those two catholic powerhouse programs pluck talent from the elementary catholic schools and scout the local programs the same way college coaches keep a close watch on high school talent. Several friends of mine were offered “scholarships” to join those championship-caliber programs. That practice will never change.

This is not a problem limited to the WPIAL. It’s the nature of high school athletics.

The only response public schools can have is building strong youth programs, surrounding the high school program with a strong coaching staff and the recipe to keep kids is simple: just win.

My alma mater, Boardman High School, constantly tangles with its catholic counterparts to keep talent in the district. The only way it can do so is run the program the right way and instill in the players at an early age that working together to build your community’s football team into a winner is as gratifying as it gets. It’s entirely possible to go from a perennial loser to a winner, but it won’t come easily.

The Tri-County South must do the same thing. The youth football programs need to be re-evaluated. Each of the nine schools in the conference has talent, but depth is an issue annually. The only way to alter that is for varsity football coaching staffs to have a hand in development at the youth level. The best programs in the WPIAL have a say in how those youth organizations are run.

The conference’s nine current teams have not won a WPIAL title since 1975, when Beth-Center defeated Kittanning to win the Class AA championship. Jefferson-Morgan won WPIAL titles in 1973 and ’74.

The Tri-County South has the coaches and athletes to break the postseason problems. The question is how will they respond to the latest in a long line of playoff disappointments?

Throwing your hands in the air and pointing to a corrupt system will only continue the downward trend.

Lance Lysowski can be reached at llysowski@observer-reporter.com.