What to watch for in WPIAL sports for April 21, 2025: Peters Township, Upper St. Clair to clash

By: Don Rebel
Sunday, April 20, 2025 | 10:02 PM

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While the WPIAL baseball schedule is light on the day after Easter, there is a key contest in a section that is looking like many of the roads in the district nowadays — all jammed.

Section 2-5A is the one WPIAL baseball section where brooms appeared to be out and doing the splits is in.

There are five teams tied for first place, all with three section losses, plus the sixth-place team is only one game out and the seventh and final team is only two games out of first place.

Bethel Park and South Fayette are 5-3 in the section. Peters Township, Upper St. Clair and Moon are all 3-3, Trinity is 2-4 and Chartiers Valley is a hard luck 3-5.

At 7 p.m. Monday at Ross Memorial Field at the W&J Complex, Peters Township (8-5) hosts Upper St. Clair (5-4) in the first game of their two-game section series.

Since Upper St. Clair dropped from 6A to 5A two years ago, the Panthers and Indians split their section series in 2023 and 2024.

USC has won both of the first games, while Peters Township has taken both of the second games.

The second game of this series is also under the lights at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Boyce-Mayview in Upper St. Clair.

Title game rematch

These suddenly are tough times for defending WPIAL Class 6A softball champion Seneca Valley.

In a span of six days, the WPIAL and PIAA top-ranked Raiders have temporarily lost their swagger.

They went from undefeated at 7-0 to losing two of their last three games, both to 6A rival Pine-Richland.

The two defeats were both one-run losses, but the last loss Thursday was excruciatingly tough.

Up by eight runs at one point, Seneca Valley led 8-1 going into the bottom of the seventh inning when Pine-Richland exploded for eight runs, tying the score on a grand slam by senior Calle Henne, then winning on an RBI single by senior Illiana Aggelou to cap the best comeback of the season.

Seneca Valley will try to bounce back Monday, but it won’t be easy as they visit Norwin in a rematch of the 2024 WPIAL 6A championship game.

While the Raiders have slipped to second place in 6A behind Hempfield with a record of 6-2 in the section and 8-2 overall, the Knights have won three straight and are a game behind SV, tied for third place at 5-3 in 6A and 5-6 overall.

This is the second meeting between the two this season as Seneca Valley beating visiting Norwin, 3-2, on the final day of March.

In that game, the Raiders’ Lexi Hames allowed two runs on three hits while striking out 19. Demi Wardzinski and Madelyn Kugler singled and scored for Norwin.

In the title game last season, Kylie Staudt went 4 for 4 and drove in two and Hames registered 19 strikeouts to pick up the win as Seneca Valley edged upset-minded Norwin, 4-3, in eight innings.

Let’s play two here and there

It is not rare to see high school softball or baseball doubleheaders being played when the weather forces postponements to section games.

On Monday for instance in district softball, there are three ‘back-to-back’ doubleheaders scheduled with Burgettstown visiting Seton LaSalle at 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. in Section 3-2A, Union hosting Cornell at noon and 2 p.m. in Section 1-A and Monessen visiting The Ellis School at 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. in Section 3-A.

However, the Upper St. Clair (1-4, 6-4) softball team will be participating in a unique doubleheader.

Call it a day/night twin bill.

The Panthers will visit first-place Chartiers Valley (4-0, 6-3) at 3:30 p.m. Monday.

Then, USC will return home and host Montour (0-5, 2-8) at 7 p.m. Monday at Boyce-Mayview.

Tags: 5 Things in Pittsburgh, Chartiers Valley, Cornell, Ellis School, Monessen, Montour, Norwin, Peters Township, Seneca Valley, Seton La Salle, Union, Upper St. Clair