Football brackets, girls soccer semis and field hockey finals make for a busy Monday

By: Don Rebel
Sunday, October 27, 2019 | 11:02 PM

For the high school football fan, Bracketology Day is like a kid on Christmas morning.

The WPIAL will release brackets for the 2019 football playoffs Monday evening, and you can find out first what the matchups are by clicking on the WPIAL Playoff Pairings Show starting at 7 p.m. at TribHSSN.TribLive.com.

There are 62 playoff teams, 19 conference champions and three wild-card teams.

For the second straight year, the Class 6A postseason is predetermined, although a little math was involved this season.

Central Catholic, North Allegheny and Pine-Richland were tri-champions with tiebreaker points giving quarterfinals byes to Central Catholic and Pine-Richland.

So on Friday, North Allegheny hosts Canon-McMillan and Seneca Valley travels to Mt. Lebanon.

The Class 5A and 2A playoff fields have 16 teams and will last the traditional four weeks while Class 4A, 3A and A are eight-team fields that will run three weeks.

Girls Soccer final four

The four finals are set for WPIAL boys soccer. Now it’s time for the girls to hit the pitch and shrink from 16 semifinalists to eight finalists.

The girls soccer semifinals take place Monday at four sites: North Allegheny, Mars, Moon and Big Mac Stadium in Canonsburg.

While there will be a new champion this year in C;ass AAA after Oakland Catholic was knocked out by Belle Vernon in the quarterfinals, the defending champs in AAAA (Seneca Valley), AA (South Park) and A (Freedom) are all part of the final four in their respective classes.

In the Class A semis, Freedom faces Greensburg Central Catholic, and Shady Side Academy battles Bentworth.

These same four teams faced off in the final four a year ago with Freedom edging Shady Side Academy 2-1 in overtime, and Bentworth beat GCC by the same score.

Field hockey finals

The last two WPIAL Class AAA champs will collide Monday in the 2019 WPIAL AAA field hockey finals at Fox Chapel.

It will be North vs. South as 2017 champion Pine-Richland faces last year’s title winner, Peters Township.

It was 10 years ago when Peters Township won their only other field hockey district crown.

Both teams posted shutouts in the semifinals, with the top-seed Rams blanking North Allegheny, 3-0, and the Indians getting past Mt. Lebanon, 1-0.

The match can be heard here at TribHSSN.TribLive.com

The Class AA and A championship finals are Tuesday.

Tags: Bentworth, Canon-McMillan, Freedom, Greensburg C.C., Mt. lebanon, North Allegheny, Peters Township, Pine-Richland, Seneca Valley, Shady Side Academy, South Park