North Hills fights to the finish during difficult but rewarding season

By: Josh Rowntree
Saturday, November 15, 2025 | 11:01 AM

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North Hills’ football team got far too familiar with one of Steelers coach Mike Tomlin’s famous sayings this season.

The Indians finished the year 3-8 with a 38-7 loss to Bethel Park in the Class 5A first round. But it was a record that didn’t exactly reflect the competitiveness of the group, which lost five games by five points or less.

“There’s a fine line between drinking wine and squashing grapes,” said interim head coach Brody Zangaro, echoing a line Tomlin uses frequently to describe the razor-thin margins between wins and losses. “Our record in the season didn’t really go the way that we wanted it to. But they never quit. They were in just about every game and played with unbelievable effort and prepared the right way every week.”

Zangaro — the team’s defensive coordinator — took over the top coaching spot in the offseason for Pat Carey, North Hills’ longtime head coach who was advised by doctors to take the season off from coach following a diagnosis of a rare autoimmune disorder called cardiac sarcoidosis.

“The guys hit the ground running,” Zangaro said. “They did everything that I could have possibly asked of them and did everything that you would expect a North Hills kid to do.

“They just handled the whole situation well. It could have been really difficult for them. They’re super close with Coach Carey, as am I. It was a difficult situation for everybody. But we did our best.”

North Hills lost its first four games as Zangaro acclimated to the head coach spot and the team dealt with a pair of close losses and an injury to one of their top defensive players Jalil McKinley-Jones.

“You think you’re somewhat prepared, but you never really are until you’re in there,” said Zangaro. “Especially at the beginning of the season, there’s stuff that’s just overwhelming. You’re just trying to make your way through each week, one week at a time.

“The close losses were super frustrating. There was one point where we were 2-6 and could have been 6-2. But that’s a great lesson for life. We said this to the kids all the time: ‘Just because you work really hard, that doesn’t mean that things are necessarily going to go your way. But that can’t deter you.’”

That said, the hard work did start to pay off a bit more. The Indians went 3-2 in Class 5A’s Northeast Conference to clinch a playoff spot. Leading the way was the team’s defense, which had strong showings in a 13-10 loss to Mars, a 21-17 loss to Norwin, a 14-13 win over Plum, a 17-14 loss to Shaler and a 17-6 win over Penn Hills — a victory that put North Hills into the postseason.

“We lost Jalil in the Mars game,” said Zangaro. “That was a huge loss for us, not even just from a football talent standpoint, but he’s a culture setter with the way that he practices and the way that he plays. And, on top of that, he’s an unbelievable player that is hard to game plan for.

“I was really proud of the way that they responded. The defense was strong. They played really hard and they tackled really well.”

Leading the defense was senior linebacker Joey Lutz, who racked up 124 tackles, 16 tackles for loss, six forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries while also establishing himself as one of the region’s best pass-catching tight ends.

“He had just an unbelievable season,” said Zangaro of Lutz, who has a preferred walk-on offer from Kent State. “We were counting on him to be that, and he lived up to it even more.”

While North Hills will say goodbye to 13 seniors, including quarterback Kelly McCarthy, they do have a pair of players on each side of the ball to build around. Junior tailback Johnell Edison led the team with more than 600 rushing yards and linebacker Nico Thomas compiled more than 100 tackles in his sophomore year.

“There were definitely some bright spots with some kids stepping up,” said Zangaro, who also highlighted all-conference defensive end and guard C.J. Harris and wideout Jack Broderick as key performers during the year.

Carey, according to Zangaro, was able to spend each Friday around the team, even wearing a headset to communicate with Zangaro during games. The hope is that his health continues to improve so that he can return to the sideline in 2026.

His absence was one that Zangaro knew was tough for his players, particularly the seniors whom he had to address following their final football game.

“I just started by thanking them for giving it everything that they have over these four years, and specifically this last one,” he said. “It was a unique situation. We talked a lot throughout the year about how there are two ways to respond. There’s the right way and the wrong way. And they responded the right way to this situation.”

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