Resilient Vikings

Nov 3, 2026 By Rob Burchianti 5 min read

Jason Fazekas focused on the task at hand and nothing else last week going into Friday night’s battle against nearby rival Southmoreland.

The veteran Mount Pleasant coach realized the only way his team had a chance of getting into the playoffs out of the Class 3A Interstate Conference was to defeat the Scotties.

That was the first step. The second step was to then hope the WPIAL would choose the Vikings for a wild card spot.

But there would be no second step if his team fell at Russ Grimm Stadium.

“I didn’t pay attention to any of the scenarios to be honest with you because I knew if we didn’t win the game we weren’t going to get in,” Fazekas said.

Mount Pleasant did its part by rallying from a 17-6 third-quarter deficit to pull away from Southmoreland for the crucial 33-17 victory.

The WPIAL then awarded the Vikings a wild card spot with the No. 14 seed. They will play at third-seeded Hopewell in the first round of the playoffs this Friday night.

“There was not a lot of anxiety or anything like that,” Fazekas said of waiting for the decision by the WPIAL pairings committee. “It was just going to be what it was.

“My assistant coaches knew what was going on and they fed me a bit of that information. From what they told me we felt we had done enough and it would break that way for us.”

Fazekas has now guided Mount Pleasant into the postseason seven times in his 10 years at the helm. The Vikings had a six-year run broken last year but are back in the dance again in 2026.

“Kind of where we’ve been at in this program for a while is we try to keep certain standards. I kind of summarize things and I let the kids know when you’re at the end of the season the goal is always to have the last few games have meaning,” Fazekas said. “Part of that for us is always try to make the playoffs, so it’s good to check off one of those goals.”

Another is defeating the Scotties.

“Beating our crosstown rival is really important for us,” Fazekas said.

The two schools sit less than six miles apart.

“It was a great atmosphere,” Fazekas said. “This is always a good game for both communities.

“The one thing I love about football season is I can throw myself into one week and just kind of put the blinders on. Winning that game was the most important thing for us.”

Mount Pleasant found itself down 11-6 at halftime but there was no panic in the Vikings, according to Fazekas.

“Our adjustments will happen series to series, a few things here and there,” Fazekas said of the gradual turnaround in momentum. “The biggest adjustments usually happen on defense at halftime where we talk about who was hurting us and what we’ve got to do to adjust the coverages and stuff like that.

“Then the message was we’re in this, let’s just keep playing. Our kids have done a good job with that all year, just hanging in there until we’re able to turn the tide a little bit.”

Dawson Wolfe’s 17-yard touchdown pass to Reese Jordan increased Southmoreland’s lead to 17-6 early in the third quarter, but the Vikings would ring up the next four scores to win going away.

Cole Hart threw a 38-yard touchdown pass to Brady Brooks and then Brooks scored on a 15-yard run to give Mount Pleasant its first lead of the game, 20-17, later in the quarter.

The Vikings put the game away with two fourth-quarter touchdowns on Hart’s 16-yard pass to Brooks and Nick Morell’s 69-yard run.

Mount Pleasant battled through an injury-filled regular season to finish 5-5 overall and 3-3 in the conference to place fourth behind Belle Vernon, Elizabeth Forward and Waynesburg Central.

“With what we started the season with, we’re literally a shell of ourselves,” Fazekas said. “The injury situation hit us pretty hard this year for sure. We were able to kind of keep it steady the last few weeks but we had to plug in a lot of gaps.

“We’re on our second quarterback. Cole Hart is the guy now who’s been playing there for a few weeks. Our main running back, Nick Morell, is actually the fourth kid that we’ve had in that position. The injuries caused some moving around in other places. We lost some key guys on defense, too. It’s been a challenge.

“What we look like now, personnel wise, is a lot different than what we looked like at the start of the season, but we’ve been resilient, the kids have come through. Morell had almost 190 yards rushing on Friday.”

Hopewell, the Western Hills Conference champion that went 9-1 in the regular season, presents a formidable challenge for the Vikings.

“Obviously, they’re a good team, given what their record is and who they’ve beaten. They’ve got the really good quarterback I’m sure everyone knows about,” said Fazekas, referring to Penn State recruit James Armstrong who’s thrown for 1.964 yards and 29 touchdowns with only two interceptions while also rushing for almost 700 yards.

“My impression is that their offensive and defensive lines are very good and they have quite a bit of talent at the skill spots as well.

“We’re going in recognizing that. The plan for us going in is to play our best game of the year and see what happens.”