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By Travis L. Pickens, Sentinel Reporter, November 17, 2008

Last updated: Monday, November 17, 2008 10:09 PM EST

Don’t look now but we’re officially into the state football playoffs.

In each of the four classifications, only 16 teams remain on the road to Hershey.

While a good amount of the survivors are household names, there’s one in particular that has had the quietest 12-0 start a team can possibly put together.

Bethel Park, a school in suburban Pittsburgh, tossed a wrench into the works of the WPIAL (PIAA District 7) Class AAAA playoffs Friday night when the Black Hawks (yes, it’s two words) took out McKeesport, 20-13, in the district semifinals.

For the last few months, the smart money was on McKeesport and Gateway, the top two seeds, to meet for the WPIAL championship.

Bethel Park obviously had other ideas.

“We did what we needed to do,” Bethel Park running back Lyle Marsh told the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette. “We made some plays and kept it all together.”

As the Black Hawks (12-0) were storming back from a seven-point, fourth-quarter deficit, McKeesport was penalized for 100 yards and bowed to the state’s Cinderella of the Class AAAA ranks.

Before Friday’s win, Bethel Park was involved in only three other games decided by one possession — all were against traditional WPIAL powers.

The Black Hawks took a 20-13 win from Penn Hills and a 27-26 thriller from North Hills in back-to-back weeks in September for a 3-0 start. Three weeks later Bethel Park arrived on the state map via a 10-6 win over Upper St. Clair that put it in the driver’s seat for the Great Southern Conference title, which it won by one game over Canon-McMillan.

It’s not as if the playoffs were an unknown to Bethel Park prior to this season, it’s just that the Black Hawks haven’t normally lasted long enough to garner much attention.

The team has qualified for the postseason, something that isn’t exactly hard to do in the WPIAL, each season since 2001 but has never hoisted a district championship trophy.

Not until this year had the team won more than one district game and twice didn’t last to see the quarterfinals this decade.

That puts the Black Hawks, who meet Gateway (12-0) at 7 p.m. Saturday at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, at a distinct experience disadvantage to a Gators side that will be playing in its second WPIAL final in as many years and third in coach Terry Smith’s seven-year tenure at the Monroeville school.

Plus, according to the Post-Gazette, this is a Gateway team that isn’t exactly shocked to be returning to Heinz Field, where it lost in overtime to eventual PIAA champion Pittsburgh Central Catholic last November.

“When the playoff brackets came out I didn’t foresee a team that was going to beat us (before the WPIAL title game),” Smith told the paper. “We’re confident in our abilities.”

OLD VERSUS NEW

At one time Cumberland Valley was the most feared program at the Class AAAA level of District 3.

CV rolled up eight district titles between 1991 and 2003, including the 1992 PIAA championship, but dropped into an abyss following its last district title and failed to win a playoff game for five years before this season’s 49-13, first-round rout of Warwick two weeks ago.

In the place of CV, some other programs stepped up in recent years and became playoff powers. State College, which has since departed to an awful subregion with teams in districts 8, 9 and 10, played for the 3-6 crown in ‘05 and ‘06, winning the latter over Governor Mifflin, another team that has flexed its playoff muscles recently.

The Mustangs followed that district runner-up finish with another last fall and, on the road to last year’s title-game appearance and this year’s run to the semifinals, beat Mid-Penn members State College, Bishop McDevitt (both games last year) and two weeks ago downed Central Dauphin.

CV welcomes Governor Mifflin (10-2) to Harry C. Chapman Field on Friday at 7 p.m. in the semifinals.

“We know we’re playing against really top-shelf teams now,” CV coach Tim Rimpfel said moments after his Eagles (11-1) flung aside Penn Manor, 42-10, in the quarterfinals. “From now on you’re playing very good teams. Again, our kids can read, they can compare scores and they saw that (Governor Mifflin) beat Central Dauphin, a major rivalry for us that took us to overtime, so we know we’re going to have our hands full.”

CLASS A PICTURE CLEARING

Whoever wins the shootout that is sure to ensue Friday afternoon at Hersheypark Stadium in the District 3 Class A championship between Camp Hill and Steelton-Highspire will need to have saved enough ammunition for the following week.

The winner will be sent to Mansion Park Stadium in Altoona to meet the champion of District 6 the night after Thanksgiving.

The 6-A title will be decided Saturday night between Portage (12-0) and Bishop McCort (11-0).

At the end of the regular season Portage boasted the second highest scoring offense in the state behind York William Penn while McCort is the two-time defending 6-AA champion.

Steel-High made the trip to Mansion Park two years ago and was smacked by Bellwood-Antis, 28-8. In 2004, Camp Hill ventured to Altoona and returned with a hard-fought 27-14 win over B-A.

A FAMILIAR SETTING

Bethlehem Freedom won’t have to travel far this weekend to try and win its first District 11 football championship.

The Patriots, who dispatched Hazleton, 42-25, Friday, will play at Bethlehem School District Stadium at a date and time to be announced.

The funny thing is, Freedom’s opponent, Bethlehem Liberty, also calls that stadium home (think Red Land and Cedar Cliff sharing West Shore Stadium).

The Hurricanes (11-1) own three 11-AAAA titles, including two straight starting in 2005, and beat Freedom, 20-14, Nov. 1. The Patriots come in 10-2.