North Hills notebook: Indians football team to open season Aug. 23

By: Triblive
Saturday, July 20, 2024 | 11:01 AM

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The North Hills varsity football team will open its season with a nonconference Week Zero matchup with Hempfield on Aug. 23, at Martorelli Stadium. It will be youth night.

Nonconference games against Seneca Valley in the Hall of Fame game and at Mars will follow in Weeks 1 and 2.

The Indians have heat acclimatization workouts starting on Aug. 5 and first official practices are Aug. 12. They will scrimmage at Upper St. Clair at 10 a.m. Aug. 17.

North Hills finished 4-6 overall and 2-3 in the Class 5A Northeast Conference last season and fell short of the WPIAL playoffs.

The Indians will again compete in the Northeast with returning playoff qualifiers Penn Hills and Pine-Richland, as well as Shaler and Fox Chapel. Plum joins the Northeast from the Big East Conference, replacing Woodland Hills, which is now in the Big East.

North Hills opens conference play Sept. 13, at Pine-Richland.

Fall sports dates

The first day of golf practice and football heat acclimatization is Aug. 5.

Aug. 12 will signal the start for cross country, boys and girls soccer, girls tennis and girls volleyball.

Davis, Reed honored

North Hills’ final student-athletes of the month were recognized in May.

Senior Connor Davis was an all-section honorable mention baseball player who helped the Indians reach the WPIAL playoffs.

Gianna Reed, a senior girls lacrosse player, was a team captain and goalie who surpassed 550 career saves this spring.

All-state honors

North Hills junior Kayden Lightner was recognized for a medal-laden track and field season with third-team all-state honors from the Pennsylvania Track and Field Coaches Association.

Lightner was a silver medalist in the 800-meter run at the WPIAL and PIAA championships. He broke his own school record this spring.

Basketball alignment changes

The big-school classification in WPIAL boys basketball is getting a little bigger this winter, but not big enough for more than two sections.

The addition of Fox Chapel, North Hills, Connellsville, Woodland Hills and Imani Christian gave the WPIAL 16 boys teams in Class 6A, which the basketball committee chose to divide into two eight-team sections. Winter sports teams got their first look at their new sections for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons when the WPIAL board approved updated alignments June 18.

In basketball, the WPIAL preferred to make larger sections than smaller ones.

“There was discussion of going to three sections rather than two (in 6A boys),” WPIAL administrator Vince Sortino said. “The reason that we stayed with two was to make the section games more meaningful. If you go to three, you’re talking five or six teams per section. There’s not enough emphasis put on the actual section games (in a 22-game schedule).”

In all, there are a dozen eight-team sections this winter.

Last season, there were none.

Section realignment is a process the WPIAL undertakes every two years. Winter sports include basketball, swimming, wrestling, rifle and gymnastics. Fall alignments were released in February. Spring sports are expected in August.

Sortino said the WPIAL put the basketball sections together with competitive balance in mind, as was done previously with fall sports, but that idea ultimately didn’t affect much here. Grouping teams geographically worked overall.

“There wasn’t a lot of talk (of moving teams) because, in each section, there are two or even three strong teams that could win that section,” Sortino said. “Each section is pretty competitive.”

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