4 WPIAL football teams maintain long conference streaks as Penn Hills’ ends

By: Chris Harlan
Sunday, October 4, 2020 | 4:34 PM

Purchase Photo Options

One of WPIAL football’s longest active conference winning streaks ended Saturday, leaving four double-digit streaks intact.

Penn Hills had won 15 consecutive conference games before Saturday night’s 43-0 loss to Pine-Richland in the Class 5A Northeast. It was the first time the team lost to a conference foe since joining Class 5A in 2018. The Indians’ most-recent conference loss was Week 9 of 2017.

But theirs wasn’t the longest active streak.

That honor belongs to Thomas Jefferson. The Jaguars have won 19 consecutive conference matchups stretching over four seasons. The last conference opponent to defeat them was Belle Vernon on Oct. 13, 2017.

TJ went 7-0 in 2018 and ’19.

Three other WPIAL teams have active streaks of 14 conference games or more.

North Catholic owns the second-longest active streak at 17 games. Central Valley and Penn-Trafford each have won 14 consecutive.

Penn-Trafford’s conference streak will be tested in Week 5 when the team visits Gateway, the second-ranked team in WPIAL Class 5A. Penn-Trafford (3-1, 2-0) and Gateway (2-0, 1-0) are both undefeated in the Big East Conference.

Gateway was the last conference team to defeat Penn-Trafford, in Week 2 of 2018.

Thomas Jefferson, North Catholic and Central Valley also have conference games next weekend.

Thomas Jefferson (3-0, 3-0) hosts Laurel Highlands (1-3, 1-2).

North Catholic (4-0, 4-0) plays South Park (3-1, 3-1) at Mars.

Central Valley (4-0, 2-0) hosts Keystone Oaks (3-1, 2-0).

One of the WPIAL’s longest conference streaks ended in Week 3. South Fayette saw its 64-game conference winning streak snapped with a loss to Peters Township. The Lions’ streak was only four games short of the WPIAL all-time record.

Upper St. Clair won 69 in a row from 1988-98.

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

Tags: Central Valley, Gateway, North Catholic, Penn Hills, Penn-Trafford, Thomas Jefferson