Defending champion North Allegheny golfers make sure to keep eye on ball

By: Brennan Valladares
Saturday, October 4, 2025 | 11:01 AM

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Last season was historic for the North Allegheny boys golf team.

Not only did the Tigers win their first WPIAL title in 53 years, but they also claimed the first state championship in school history. A year later, North Allegheny is back on top of Section 3-3A and has a chance to defend its WPIAL and PIAA titles.

Yet coach Pat Nevin’s message is clear: That is all in the past.

“That win last year is done,” Nevin said.

“We won the section. Fantastic. Now we’re moving into the first round of playoffs. It’s a one and done. You don’t get a second attempt at beating them.”

The Tigers, as of Sept. 30, had a 13-3 overall record with a 10-2 mark in conference play.

While that record is impressive on paper, the margin for error has been razor thin. North Allegheny’s three losses have been decided by a total of six strokes. It has had four wins by four strokes or fewer.

Yes, the Tigers have played well enough to win a section title, but Nevin is requiring his team to have a heightened sense of attention to detail during these playoffs.

“I said, ‘You’ve only lost a couple matches by, like, half a dozen strokes,’” Nevin reminded his team.

“So we could lose next week by a couple strokes,” he continued.

“That’s one stroke a guy, you know, and so we have to look for where we don’t want to give that one stroke away on a certain hole.”

Fortunately for Nevin, his senior core of Ravi Desai, Colin Ward, Preston Troiano and Liam Cooper knows what it takes to win, as they were four of the top six players on the WPIAL title team a year ago.

Desai, Ward and Troiano all competed at the WPIAL individual championships Sept. 22 and 29. Desai, a Penn State commit, placed sixth after he shot a 2-over 72 in the final round, finishing at 4-over for the tournament.

Ward placed 11th, going 6-over, while Troiano did not finish.

“(Preston Troiano) hurt his wrist going after a ball that was up against a root on, I believe, hole 10 out at Willowbrook,” Nevin said.

Troiano, the Section 3-3A champion, has since been medically cleared for the team championships.

With that news, Ward and Desai are confident they have what it takes to run it back in 2025.

Said Ward: “We have all the skill we had last year, and I feel like we can just go through and compete. We’ve just got to stay within ourselves and not get ahead of ourselves and just keep putting in the practice.”

Said Desai: “We know we can do it again. (We) know we have what it takes. So just sticking to our process and keep grinding.”

The WPIAL hasn’t had a repeat champion since Central Catholic in 2018.

However, the Class 3A PIAA champion has come from the WPIAL the last three years. Regardless, North Allegheny is just focused on the next match.

“(We’re) not looking ahead,” Nevin said.

“It’s just trying to keep it one match at a time. I think that’s the biggest thing, is trying to keep focused. When you win, there’s a lot of times that focus (drifts and you say), ‘Oh, we’ve got to repeat as state champs.’ Well, there’s a lot of hurdles in order to get to that state champ level.”

The first of those hurdles, the WPIAL team championships, were scheduled to begin Oct. 7 with the semifinals at the Links at Spring Church and conclude with the finals Oct. 9 at Cedarbrook.

Tags: North Allegheny