Countdown to kickoff
LH-Uniontown clash, new coaches, Rockets highlight Week Zero
All high school football coaches get pumped up by the start of the season but there are seven among the local contingent who will likely have a little extra adrenaline going when Week Zero kicks off tonight.
Seven teams will take the field under new guidance, including both Laurel Highlands and Uniontown, who clash at Bill Power Stadium.
The slate will see 14 of the 16 area squads in non-conference action, including Jefferson-Morgan which hosts Chartiers-Houston. The Rockets, led by explosive senior Deakyn DeHoet and third-year coach Shane Ziats, have the longest current regular-season winning streak among local teams at 11 and are 15-1 in their last 16.
All games kick off at 7 p.m.
As for the rest of the schedule, playing at home will be Frazier, vs. Summit Academy, Belle Vernon, vs. West Allegheny, Waynesburg Central, vs. Greene County rival West Greene, Albert Gallatin, vs. Greensburg Salem and Mount Pleasant, vs. Jeannette, while on the road are Brownsville at Bentworth, California at Serra Catholic, Connellsville at Latrobe, Mapletown at Avella and Southmoreland at Valley.
Making their debut as a high school head coach will be the Mustangs’ Aaron Raffle, Frazier’s Tony Battaglini, Brownsville’s Cody Castor, Belle Vernon’s Scott Bryer and Southmoreland’s Dustin Shoaf.
Veteran high school head coaches who will be on the sidelines with new teams are the Red Raiders’ Tim Bukowski and Waynesburg’s Joe Kuhns.
Beth-Center, also under a new coach in Tim Trump, and Carmichaels both opted to open their seasons in Week One.
Uniontown will be looking for its first win over LH since 2016 when coach John Fortugna led the Red Raiders past the Mustangs, 27-10. Laurel Highlands has won the past five meetings with the crosstown rivals not facing each other from 2018 to 2020.
“When you play a rivalry game everybody is going to be fired up no matter what week it is,” said Bukowski who guided Southmoreland to a 49-13 win at LH last year before leaving the Scotties to take over for the departed Keith Jeffries at Uniontown. “Probably with us being new coaches, you’d like to maybe see this game later in the season just because the players would be more adjusted to what we’re doing by then. But it’s definitely going to get the juices flowing to play Laurel Highlands right out of the gate.”
Raffle, a Laurel Highlands graduate who most recently was the head coach of George Mason’s club football team, recalls the Mustangs’ rivalry with the Red Raiders.
“First off it’s good to be back,” Raffle said. “Laurel Highlands-Uniontown has always been the big game so to me it’s exciting to open up with that. When I was playing at LH, Uniontown was always the last game of the season and you sort of looked forward to that.
“I think this is a great game to open up with because it will get the kids and the community excited for the season.”
Both coaches are eager to see how their new teams have picked up the new systems they’ve implemented.
“All the coaches are anxious to see how they respond and how much they’ve picked up,” Bukowski said. “Offensively we have probably 50 percent of what we’d like to have in. Defensively as well, you hope they get the right call and go to the right spots.
“Like I tell everybody, a year from now we’ll be a totally different team because our systems will be in and they’ll know them a lot better.”
Raffle feels his team has adjusted to the changes well.
“I think we’ve got a good energy going into it,” he said. “They players are all bought into our new systems I feel like. It’s just a matter of being out there and executing.
“I never really get nervous but I get excited for the game. You work the entire offseason to get to this point.”
Battaglini, who had great success on head coach Bill Cherpak’s staff at Thomas Jefferson before taking over at Frazier, wants his Commodores to be fired up for their opener against visiting Summit Academy, to a point.
“We’re just trying to keep the kids in the right mindset going into this game,” said Battaglini, who is a Frazier graduate. “They’re super-excited about what we have going on but you don’t want the moment to be too big, and on the other hand you don’t want to minimize it either.
“We want to keep them level-headed and focused on the task at hand and not have them get out of character with their emotions running high.”
The Knights won at Frazier last year, 20-16, also in Week Zero.
“I think Friday should be a pretty good barometer of where we are and what we have to work on as we move forward,” Battaglini said. “I told them from the beginning, you get out of this game what you put into it. They’ve put all this work in for eight-nine months so for them to finally be able to hopefully see that pay off Friday night is what I’m excited about, especially for them.”
Castor’s first game with the Falcons is against a Bearcats team that won at Redstone Field, 48-0, a year ago but he’s been adamant that this is a new year and a new team.
“I’m excited and nervous,” Castor said. “I think myself and my coaching staff have done a great job of coming together as it’s getting close to that first game. The coaches have put in a lot of work with their position groups so I’m hoping to see that translate in game one.
“The message is compete. Compete every play, try to go 1-0 every play, when that play is over, turn the switch on for the next play, and don’t get too high or too low throughout the course of the game.
“Bentworth looks very similar to us so I’m excited to see what transpires.”
Castor already has his players involved in the community.
“Our kids are going to help out with open house at the school (which was scheduled for Thursday night),” Castor said. “I’m going to have the team there and we’re going to greet and walk kids to classrooms with their families. Then we’ll have our team pasta dinner to follow that up.”
Shoaf, a former Yough star now coaching one the Cougars’ biggest rivals in Southmoreland, is thrilled that the season is finally here as the Scotties prepare for their trip to Valley.
“It’s exciting. We’ve been working since February for this exact moment on Friday at 7 p.m. for kickoff,” Shoaf said. “There’s a new staff, a new program. We’re excited, the kids are excited, the community is excited. Everybody is fired up to be there.”
Shoaf compared preparing for the first game of a season from a player’s perspective and a coach’s perspective.
“The big difference is as a player you’re preparing yourself and concentrating on yourself to be one of those arrows but as a coach you’re preparing almost 50 arrows for all your players and coaches so obviously that’s a much wider scope. But I feel you handle it how you handle life, in my opinion. If you’re calm, cool and relaxed and not willing to be afraid of any challenge or uncomfortable situation, then you’ll be OK.”
Shoaf noted how far his team has come and the support it’s gotten since he took over as head coach.
“I wouldn’t be necessarily in a comfortable situation without having a really good group of kids and assistant coaches, and support from the administration as well,” Shoaf said. “There are a lot of pieces that had to be put into place to be where we’re at today and we still have a lot more to go.”
Shoaf admitted he may have a few nervous moments heading into his first game as a head coach.
“Nerves are a part of it,” Shoaf said. “If you don’t have at least some nerves for that first game then I don’t know if you’re human. When you do feel a little of that it means you truly care about something and your passion is all in.
“But once we kick off and get rolling I think we’ll all be just fine.”