Conference opener takes Pine-Richland coach Jon LeDonne back to Penn Hills

By: Chris Harlan
Wednesday, September 7, 2022 | 8:24 PM

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Yuhas-McGinley Stadium holds fond memories for Jon LeDonne, but what kind of welcome will he receive there Friday night when he’s wearing green instead of the home team’s red and gold?

LeDonne spent five good years as Penn Hills’ football coach and won a state title in 2018, but this week he’ll return for the first time since Pine-Richland hired him away in February. Rarely does a coach leave one team to take over a conference rival, which LeDonne did, making his homecoming reception a little complicated.

“I try not to think about it,” he said. “Obviously, since the schedules came out, everyone’s been talking about it for the last five months. I can’t wait for Saturday to get here, to tell you the truth.”

This game has many storylines.

Most importantly, it’s the conference opener for two teams picked as preseason favorites for the Northeast title. It’s possible this game will ultimately decide the conference champion, when No. 2 Penn Hills (1-1) hosts No. 3 Pine-Richland (1-1) at 7 p.m. Friday.

A year ago, they finished in a three-way tie with North Hills atop the standings.

But the return of LeDonne to a school where he went 46-13 as coach is also on everyone’s mind, even though he told his Pine-Richland players he doesn’t want this week focused on the coaches. His first-year Rams staff has a number of assistants who followed him from Penn Hills.

His former players say they, too, will try to keep the focus on the field.

“It could be an emotional game for both sides, the players and the staff over there,” Penn Hills quarterback Julian Dugger said, “but I look at it as another game, as a business trip, and you have to handle business.”

LeDonne and his family already lived in the Pine-Richland school district, and he was involved in youth sports there with his kids, so it was a career move that made sense.

Still, it was a shock for Penn Hills.

“I think everyone felt some sort of way,” said Dugger, adding that some in Penn Hills maybe had hard feelings, “but some people also understood why he did it.

“So, it’s a little bit of both.”

Penn Hills has since turned the page on the LeDonne era. The district hired 2005 graduate Charles Morris as coach and his focus is on the future.

“We can’t get caught up in all of the distractions and people making this game a huge, huge thing,” Morris said. “We can’t get caught up in the hype. We’ve got to prepare like it’s any other week. That’s what I’ve been telling the guys. … This week is just Pine-Richland.”

Penn Hills is coming off a 26-7 win over Norwin after losing a close opener to Seneca Valley, 17-15, in Week Zero.

In two games, Dugger has completed 18 of 28 passes for 276 yards and two touchdowns. He’s also rushed for 146 yards. The junior is becoming one of the WPIAL’s top dual-threat quarterbacks and lists Pitt among his D1 offers.

Junior running back Amir Key has 232 rushing yards and three touchdowns on 43 carries.

“We played a lot of those guys as freshmen,” LeDonne said. “They’re in their junior years now, so those are guys with a lot of games under their belts.”

Pine-Richland opened its season with a 42-0 loss to Pickerington (Ohio) North in LeDonne’s debut as coach. The Rams bounced back with a 33-0 win at Kiski Area, led by senior running back Ryan Palmieri, who had 125 rushing yards and a touchdown.

The Rams’ running game should get a boost this week with the return of lineman Ryan Cory, a 6-4, 290-pound junior with Power 5 college offers. LeDonne said Cory missed the first two games with an illness.

But Cory isn’t their only big lineman who plays on both sides of the ball. Among the others is senior Jake Beam, a 6-4, 280-pound tackle.

Countering that size is a tall task for Penn Hills.

“They’re big,” Morris said. “They want to assert their dominance and aggression in the trenches. We’ve got to try to meet that challenge.”

This is the third year in a row that the two teams share a conference. Pine-Richland won the past two meetings, 21-14 last season and 43-0 in 2020. LeDonne was on Penn Hills’ sideline for each of those games.

This time, returning as Pine-Richland’s coach, LeDonne might feel a little less welcome.

“Maybe not players as much, but there might be fans and parents who aren’t as receptive,” he said. “But I know there are a lot of guys who’ll have open arms and are appreciative of what we did.”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

Tags: Penn Hills, Pine-Richland