Eagles looking forward to visiting Sto-Rox
By DEAN DELLAMALVA JR.
MVI Sports
The WPIAL Class 2A football semifinals have been completely refreshed from just a year ago. Washington, Brentwood, Avonworth and Riverside have been replaced with Apollo Ridge, Beaver Falls, Sto-Rox and Serra Catholic.
Perhaps the most surprising team among the final four are the Eagles, who came into the playoffs as the No. 7 seed after not playing their final two games due to COVID-19 issues.
“I definitely think we are the COVID champs, we missed two games,” Serra coach Jose Regus said. “We’re just trying to win some more games. I don’t think anyone missed two games like we did.”
Despite not playing the final two weeks of the regular season, Serra Catholic (5-0) came out strong, especially on defense, in a 21-14 win over McGuffey in the quarterfinals. Its team-first atmosphere was crucial to the Eagles success throughout the season.
“It was not as hard as it could have been if these guys haven’t been playing together for a long time,” Regus said. “We have grown and matured and it kind of helped us.”
Serra’s semifinal opponent is the Sto-Rox Vikings from the Three Rivers Conference. Sto-Rox lost to Clairton in last season’s Class A WPIAL championship, 41-19, at Heinz Field. Despite the jump up in class, the Vikings (7-1) have found a lot of success in 2A.
“We learned a lot from last year, our guys really got the chance to take in a lot,” Sto-Rox coach LaRoi Johnson said. “We played a lot of guys last year, even though we were senior heavy. We hope we have done a good job to prepare them for this moment.”
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