‘It’s unfair to our kids,’ says Clairton coach after WPIAL denies home playoff game

By: Chris Harlan
Saturday, October 29, 2022 | 11:16 PM

Wayne Wade was already envisioning one more Friday night in Clairton under the lights and the festivities that accompany a home football game in the WPIAL playoffs.

Now, he’s left to wonder what time the team bus must leave to beat traffic.

“It’s unfair to our kids not to have a home game after finishing second in a pretty decent conference,” said Wade, Clairton’s coach, who was upset Saturday when his Bears received a No. 9 seed in the WPIAL Class A bracket.

That seed meant Clairton won’t play Friday at Neil C. Brown Stadium as expected.

Instead, the Bears open the playoffs on the road against No. 8 Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, which plays its games at Moon’s stadium.

OLSH (8-2) has a better overall record than Clairton (5-5) and defeated the Bears head-to-head in a Week 2 exhibition, but what Wade said he couldn’t accept was that his team finished second in the Eastern Conference at 5-1 while OLSH was the fourth-place qualifier from the Black Hills at 5-2.

“I don’t get it,” Wade said. “I don’t understand how we lose one conference game … and don’t get a home game.”

The WPIAL football committee instead awarded home games to all four playoff qualifiers from the Black Hills Conference: No. 1 Bishop Canevin (9-1), No. 6 Fort Cherry (7-3), No. 7 Burgettstown (6-3) and No. 8 OLSH.

The four other home games went to Eastern champion Greensburg Central Catholic (8-2), Tri-County South champion Mapletown (10-0), Big Seven champion Laurel (8-1) and Big Seven runner-up South Side (9-1).

The WPIAL in the past guaranteed home games for all first- and second-place teams from every conference, but that no longer was true in recent years, said Norwin athletic director Mike Burrell, co-chairman of the WPIAL football committee.

“There’s language in our cover page now that says the only thing guaranteed is the conference champion will get a home game,” said Burrell, noting that the change was made to give the committee more flexibility.

“There were times when some conferences were stronger than others and we were kind of locked into how we did the brackets because we had to give (the higher seed to) a team awarded a home game. I don’t think for the overall tournament that was fair.”

The 12-person football committee met for about three hours Saturday morning in Green Tree to seed the brackets. Of the six classifications, Class A was their toughest to complete, Burrell said.

All second-place teams in the other classifications received home playoff games, with the exception of Class 5A, where there’s only an eight-team bracket and three conferences. Starting on the road in Class A are Clairton and Monessen, which finished second in the Tri-County South. Monessen was seeded 11th and opens the playoffs Friday at Fort Cherry.

Those decisions came down to strength of conference and nonconference opponents, Burrell said. A team from the Eastern Conference has won the WPIAL Class A title 12 of the past 16 seasons, with 10 won by Clairton alone. But the committee thought the balance of power at least for this year had shifted to the Black Hills, which includes defending WPIAL champion Bishop Canevin.

“Typically in years past, the Eastern Conference has been a successful conference and a very difficult conference,” Burrell said. “Well, this year, it wasn’t as strong as some other conferences.”

Leechburg (7-3) was seeded 13th after finishing third in the Eastern and Jeannette (3-7) was seeded 16th as the fourth-place team.

In dropping Clairton to No. 9, the committee also pointed out two nonconference losses by the Bears to OLSH, 28-13 in Week 2, and Rochester, 36-26 in Week 7.

“Rochester is the fourth-place team in the Big Seven,” Burrell said, “and OLSH is the fourth-place team in the Black Hills. I know those are exhibitions, but you have to take a look at that whole entire body of work.”

The four playoff qualifiers from the Black Hills went 7-2 against teams from other Class A conferences. But Wade thought Clairton shouldn’t be downgraded for playing and losing to five quality nonconference teams.

“I understand if their conference is tougher than ours, but we’re typically the toughest conference,” Wade said. “And even though we lost to three Single-A teams this year, no one played a tougher schedule than us. No one.”

Clairton lost to City League champion Westinghouse, 40-8, in Week Zero, and WPIAL Class 2A qualifier Washington, 48-20, in Week 1. Wade said he thought Clairton deserved no worse than a No. 7 seed.

Who the Bears were told to play in the first round was less important to Wade than where they were told to play.

“It doesn’t matter if they told us we had to play Bishop Canevin first round,” Wade said. “We should be home. I don’t care who we play. We should have a home game.”

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: Clairton