By: Bill Beckner Jr.


Saturday, January 17, 2026 | 5:37 PM

The PIAA boys and girls soccer championships are coming to Highmark Stadium for the next four years.

It has been a while since the PIAA brought its trophies west.

Next year’s finals will mark the first time a state championship has been played in WPIAL territory since the 1992 PIAA girls volleyball finals were contested at Robert Morris.

There have been many state tournaments played on this side of the commonwealth.

The 1991 PIAA Class 2A football championship was played at South Stadium (now Cupples Stadium), and numerous PIAA basketball finals were played in Pittsburgh — proper and surrounding areas — before Penn State and Hershey became longtime sites.

The old Civic Arena hosted boys state finals in 1966, ’71 and ’79. Pitt’s Fitzgerald Field House hosted the boys Class 2A final in 1963 and ’65, and the 1962 Class A final was played at New Castle High School.

The Pavilion at Pitt Stadium hosted the 2A title game in 1947, ’51, ’53, ’55, ’61 and the 1929, ’31 and ’34 3A championships.

Irwin won its first two titles at the Pavilion in ’47 and ’53.

Valley won the 1979 title at Civic Arena. Franklin Regional’s girls took their ’79 title there, as well.

Washington High School hosted the 1950 PIAA wrestling championships.

Many don’t realize the PIAA was founded in Pittsburgh in 1913.

The WPIAL is looking forward to seeing the state’s premier games come to the city.

“We are extremely happy for our players, coaches and fans to have an opportunity to play for a PIAA soccer championship right in our own backyard,” WPIAL executive director Vince Sortino said. “Highmark has a great facility for such an event, and it also gives schools from across the PIAA the opportunity to see our beautiful city.”

Second offer for Brown

Jeannette standout quarterback/defensive back Kymon’e Brown wants to play Division I football, and he has more than one option.

A second program offered him a scholarship last week, with Albany reaching out.

His other offer is from the Naval Academy.

Brown has won back-to-back TribLive Westmoreland player of the year awards.

This season, he threw for 1,822 yards and 19 touchdowns and rushed for 1,119 yards and 17 TDs. He added 50 tackles and two interceptions.

The great indoors

The Hempfield distance medley relay is off to a fast start to the indoor track and field season.

The foursome of Ryan Ewing, Kieran Allison, Isaiah Bittner and Jonathan Stetchock broke the school record last weekend with a time of 10 minutes, 40.44 seconds.

The time ranks first in the state and is No. 5 nationally.

Recruiting

• IUP offered Norwin senior linebacker, tight end and long-snapper Josh Lenart. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound Lenart, a first-team all-conference pick on defense, had 28 tackles, six for loss, two sacks and an interception this season for the Knights.

Lenart has five Division II offers from PSAC schools. The others are from Edinboro, Seton Hill, Gannon and Clarion.

• Jeannette running back and linebacker Nick Mendoza grabbed his first NCAA Division II offer, from West Liberty of the Mountain East Conference.

This season, Mendoza (5-11, 180) ran for 460 yards and eight touchdowns, and had 65 tackles and six sacks for the Jayhawks.

• West Liberty also offered Franklin Regional senior tight end and linebacker Lochlan Bresnahan. Bresnahan (6-2, 210) had four catches for 42 yards this season and made 34 tackles, eight for loss, with four sacks.

• Brayden Gerst, a senior all-conference linebacker at Hempfield, will play at Grove City. Gerst (5-10, 200) had 70 tackles, nine for loss, this season for the Spartans.

• Greensburg Central Catholic senior lineman Matt Mazowiecki (5-10, 225) and senior wide receiver and defensive back Jackson Lowden (5-11, 160) will continue their playing careers at Washington & Jefferson.

• Hempfield senior Isabella Billeck will play lacrosse at Mount Aloysius.

Bill Beckner Jr. is a TribLive reporter covering local sports in Westmoreland County. He can be reached at bbeckner@triblive.com.

For decades, the city of Pittsburgh was built on the foundation of being a hard-working city, one centered on the steel mills and blue-collar ethos that went into that way of making a living.

That hard-nosed, blue-collar mentality eventually rubbed off on the Pittsburgh Steelers on the gridiron, connecting the franchise with the city forever in the 1970s when the Steelers went on that dynastic run. That mentality has carried over for generations, too. It’s how the Steelers still operate, remaining a defense-first organization that values physical football.

But, as the city itself has over the last two decades or so, it’s time for the Steelers to adjust and embrace change. Pittsburgh became widely recognized across the United States as a significant health care and innovation hub, transitioning away from the steel mills and other manual-labor positions.

Though the need for those manual-labor jobs and the true hard-working class remains, Pittsburgh has embraced change and is thriving.

It’s time for the Steelers to do the same, especially since they now find themselves searching for a new head coach for the first time in 19 years.

No longer can the Steelers focus on playing a similar brand of football that made them successful throughout their modern history. The game of football is constantly changing and evolving, and the Steelers have to get out of the antiquated mindset and adjust to the league, too.

That’s why I personally believe the Steelers should get in early on Los Angeles Rams passing game coordinator Nate Scheelhaase and give him the opportunity to be their next head coach. He’s a hot, up-and-coming offensive mind who has learned under Sean McVay for two years in the NFL. He also had a long track record of success in college under both Lovie Smith and Matt Campbell.

It would go against the mold of what the Steelers have done the last three times they’ve hired a head coach, landing a young, defensive-minded coach to oversee the franchise. But like the city itself, sometimes you need to change your identity somewhat to experience that next level of success.

That’s not to say that the Steelers shouldn’t hire a defensive-minded head coach like Chris Shula, Jesse Minter, Brian Flores, Anthony Weaver or Ejiro Evero. There’s still a place for them in today’s NFL, if their teams are built correctly. Just look at the Seattle Seahawks (Mike MacDonald), Houston Texans (DeMeco Ryans), Buffalo Bills (Sean McDermott) and New England Patriots (Mike Vrabel) as examples.

What those coaches did, though, was hand the reins of the offense to innovative play-callers, giving them free rein to do as they saw fit. That didn’t really happen in Pittsburgh under Tomlin, especially after the Killer B’s era. The Steelers went back to a conservative approach built on running the football, throwing outside of the numbers and mitigating risk in the passing game.

Though Tomlin found a way to win regular-season games time and time again with that method, especially in the post-Ben Roethlisberger era, it never worked in the playoffs. What does work in the playoffs is an aggressive offensive approach, while still having talent on the defensive side of the football that can play fast and free.

There is still a need to run the football and lean on the big men in the trenches on both sides of the ball to win games, especially in the playoffs. But in today’s NFL, you need the quarterback and a sustainable passing game to work. That hasn’t been the case with the Steelers.

So it’s time for change, from the head coach to the rest of the coaching staff, the roster, and even the organizational philosophy.

It’s no longer about the Jimmies and the Joes being better than the opponent and winning their individual matchups based solely on talent. Schematics are so important in today’s game, and the Steelers just haven’t been able to match up there.

Pittsburgh doesn’t have to completely abandon its defensive identity and hard-nosed culture, which it’s been built on for years. But it does need to shift and adapt to the times. And that starts with the hiring of the head coach.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have done a lot of work this offseason, but questions still remain. One of the most burning issues is how they plan to solve the left side of the infield.

Shortstop likely has an in-house solution, with Konnor Griffin to receive every opportunity to make the opening day roster, and is nearly guaranteed to ascend to the bigs early in 2026 if it doesn’t happen immediately after spring training.

Third base is the real conundrum in Pittsburgh. The Pirates would have loved to pencil in Kazuma Okamoto at the hot corner, but they came up short thanks to an 11th-hour push by the Toronto Blue Jays in free agency.

To his credit, Ben Cherington recognizes the issue, and the club has been in contact with free-agent third basemen Eugenio Suarez and Yoan Moncada. Suarez––and his bat––would be the fans’ preference, but his age and salary demands make him a tough fit for Pittsburgh.

That leaves a Moncada signing to platoon with the glove-first Jared Triolo as the most likely outcome, and there are a number of reasons why.

A Yoan Moncada-Jared Triolo platoon at third is the Pirates’ most likely solution for the hot corner

First, a history lesson. A little over a decade ago, the Boston Red Sox gave a then-20-year-old Moncada a record-setting $31.5 million signing bonus as an international free agent and quickly became the No. 1 prospect in all of baseball.

The man at the helm of the Red Sox at the time? None other than Ben Cherington.

Moncada played all of eight games in Boston before he was shipped off to the Chicago White Sox in a trade to land Chris Sale.

There’s an obvious connection there, and while Moncada’s career hasn’t panned out exactly as expected, his 2025 campaign was something of a resurgence. Sort of.

As the White Sox began to disintegrate and many of their young talents stagnated, Moncada hit several bumps in the road. The 2022 saw him post a career-worst 76 wRC+, while 2023 was a bit of a rebound to a league-average mark, and 2024 was nearly wiped out entirely by injury. From 2022 through last season, the Cuban native has averaged just 73 games played per season.

Moncada logged 84 games played in 2025 as a variety of ailments limited his availability, but it was still a vast improvement over the 12 contests he appeared in during the 2024 season.

Moncada’s bat rebounded to a degree, too. His .234/.336/.448 line was 18% better than league average, his .214 ISO was his best power performance since his 2019 breakout, and his 11.1% walk rate helped him get on base at a healthy clip despite the poor batting average and 26% strikeout rate.

Injuries are obviously a concern, but power and patience are two things Pittsburgh’s lineup could still use. While Moncada is a switch-hitter, he’s really become more of a platoon bat at this point in his career. Last season, he posted an .815 OPS against righties and a putrid .477 mark against southpaws.

That’s where Triolo comes in. He’s is a superior defender to Moncada after injuries sapped his athleticism, and the Pirates’ utilityman performed very well against left-handed pitching last season, slashing .275/.339/.459.

In a timeshare with Moncada, Triolo can help keep the 30-year-old healthy, and between the two of them, the Pirates could get a roughly .800 OPS type of performance out of third base. That’s nothing to sneeze at. Moncada will also come much cheaper than Suarez, who brings a lot of the same concerns (aside from health) to the table.

A Moncada-Triolo platoon might not be a ceiling raiser, but it does give the Pirates a higher floor as long as Moncada can stay healthy enough to hold up the strong side of the platoon. And sometimes, raising the floor is all you really need.