Familiar foes Peters Township, Pine-Richland clash for 3rd straight year in WPIAL 5A final

By: Chris Harlan
Friday, November 21, 2025 | 3:00 AM

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When the semifinal clock reached zeroes and Peters Township clinched a trip to Acrisure Stadium, there wasn’t much reaction on the Indians’ sideline.

No wild celebration. No water coolers dumped.

“That was the most subdued sideline we’ve ever had,” said T.J. Plack, the team’s 10th-year coach.

A 25-point lead maybe played a part, but Plack also recognized how a trip to the WPIAL finals feels almost normal for his players nowadays. That seems silly to say for a program that first reached the WPIAL finals in 2019, but Peters Township is now headed there on Saturday for the fifth time in seven seasons.

“We’re not taking it lightly,” Plack said. “Please, believe me. We’re excited for this.”

Waiting for them is a familiar foe.

Second-seeded Peters Township (12-0) faces No. 1 Pine-Richland (11-1) in the WPIAL Class 5A final at 8 p.m. Saturday at Acrisure Stadium. This will be the teams’ third straight championship matchup.

Defending champion Pine-Richland won 20-9 last year. Peters Township won 43-17 a year earlier. The teams also met in the 2020 finals, won by Pine-Richland, 35-0.

“We’re familiar with each other, and I think that says a lot about both programs,” said Pine-Richland coach Jon LeDonne, in his fourth season with the Rams. “With that expectation and that standard comes a lot of hard work.”

That hard work has paid off.

LeDonne took over a strong Pine-Richland program in 2022 and has shaped the Rams into being the elite team in Class 5A, winning two WPIAL titles and a state championship in three years. The Rams, a nine-time WPIAL champion, have missed the finals only once since 2017.

Peters Township took a different route here.

The Indians had one playoff win in the two decades before Plack was hired in 2016. Yet they won a conference title three years later, reached the WPIAL finals in Year 4 and celebrated their first league championship in Plack’s eighth season as coach.

Now, they’re Pine-Richland’s rival.

“It’s special,” Plack said. “It really is.”

Neither team reached the finals unexpectedly. The two rosters are among the most talented in the WPIAL, each with multiple players holding Division I college offers.

Peters Township is led by Villanova commit Nolan DiLucia, a three-year starter at quarterback and a four-year starter at safety. The senior has passed for 2,449 yards and 22 touchdowns this season.

Two of his top targets are senior tight ends/linebackers Reston Lehman, a Pitt recruit, and Stanford-bound Lucas Shanafelt. Joining DiLucia in the backfield is senior running back Cole Neupaver, who has 1,314 rushing yards and 19 touchdowns.

All four are part of a senior class that is 38-3 over the past three seasons with three trips to the finals.

“We’ve built a standard at this school, and we want to uphold it,” DiLucia said. “We want to pass it down to our younger guys. Not just us. People are going to think (the winning will end) because our class — a great senior class — is going to leave. But we’ve got guys underneath.

“We’ve got eighth graders and seventh graders coming up who are going to make plays.”

Pine-Richland has big plans, too.

The Rams want to become the first WPIAL team to win back-to-back Class 5A titles since the classification formed in 2016. They’re led by a big-play tandem of senior Jay Timmons and junior Khalil Taylor, who both play wide receiver and defensive back.

Taylor, who recently added college offers from Georgia and Ohio State, has scored a team-high 23 touchdowns. Timmons is an Ohio State commit with 11 touchdowns. They team up with quarterback Aaron “Oobi” Strader, a junior with 2,139 passing yards, 33 touchdowns and a handful of FBS offers.

In the backfield, senior running back Maclane Miller has 1,249 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns.

The Rams average 47.6 points per game as the highest-scoring offense in WPIAL Class 5A.

“We always say we feel (opposing) teams have to pick their poison with us,” LeDonne said. “If they want to take the pass game away, we need to be able to run the ball. We’re fortunate enough to have key players at the wide receiver, quarterback and running back position.”

The Rams are coming off a 34-24 semifinal victory over Moon that tested their balance.

Moon clamped down on the Rams’ passing attack, and Strader completed 2 of 5 passes for 30 yards with one touchdown and one interception. Instead, Strader rushed for 198 yards and two touchdowns on 18 carries, and Miller added 71 rushing yards.

“We faced some adversity for the first time in over two months, and the guys fought,” LeDonne said. “It was probably better for us to have something like that then than here in the championship.”

Peters Township is coming off a 31-6 semifinal victory over Upper St. Clair. Neupaver rushed for 147 yards and two touchdowns on 26 carries, and Lehman scored on a 5-yard catch.

Lehman also led the Indians’ defensive effort with three sacks and a forced fumble.

Despite his team’s winning ways, DiLucia said Peters Township’s recent success still feels somewhat overlooked. But they’re back in the WPIAL finals once again, so DiLucia isn’t about to complain.

“I think people still see us as the underdogs,” he said. “But we love when people bet against us. I know my team.”

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: Peters Township, Pine-Richland