South Hills notes: Brentwood football team features 5 seniors

By: HSSN Staff
Thursday, August 2, 2018 | 10:51 PM

Notebook items from around the South Hills:

• Preseason practice for high school fall sports teams — football, golf, girls volleyball, cross country, girls tennis, soccer and field hockey — begins Aug. 13.

• Brentwood’s football squad is expected to experience some growing pains in the early part of the 2018 season.

“We are very young and inexperienced, with only five seniors on the team,” said Greg Perdziola, the Spartans’ defensive coordinator.

• Mason Stahl, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound junior quarterback at Baldwin, also is an outfielder in the Highlanders’ baseball program.

“My biggest influences athletically are my teammates,” Stahl said.

• Claire Whalen, a freshman outfielder on Thomas Jefferson’s playoff softball team last spring, also competes in volleyball and track and field.

Whalen owns a 4.28 GPA and has earned the Rotary Award for Academic Excellence and Presidents Award for Educational Excellence.

She played for the Pittsburgh Spirit 14U Gold Prady travel softball team this summer.

• The PIHL recently released its alignment for the 2018-19 winter season.

Baldwin will compete in Class AA in the South/East Division along with Franklin Regional, Hempfield, Latrobe, Penn-Trafford, Plum and Upper St. Clair.

Thomas Jefferson will skate in Class A in the South/West Division along with Chartiers Valley, South Fayette, South Park, Wheeling Catholic and Wheeling Park.

There are 14 teams in Class AA and 22 teams in Class A.

• There were seven winless football teams in the WPIAL last season: Shaler, Uniontown, Ambridge, Southmoreland, Chartiers-Houston, Carlynton and Leechburg.

Shaler (Class 5A) will take a 24-game losing streak into the 2018 season. Ambridge (Class 4A) has lost 20 games in a row.

The only team to finish undefeated in 2017 was Pine-Richland (16-0), which won the WPIAL and PIAA titles in Class 6A.

The five other WPIAL champions last year were Gateway (5A), Thomas Jefferson (4A), Quaker Valley (3A), Washington (2A) and Jeannette (A).

• The Seton LaSalle football team will play four home games during the 2018 regular season.

The Rebels will host Brentwood and Fort Cherry at Thomas Jefferson, Burgettstown at Peters Township and Serra Catholic at Dormont Stadium.

• Baldwin graduate Sterling Jenkins (6-8, 332) is a redshirt junior offensive lineman at Penn State and an English major.

In high school, Jenkins earned prep All-American honors as an offensive tackle and played in the Under Armour All-American Game at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla.

• The annual TJ Football Boosters golf outing is set for Aug. 10 at Butler’s Golf Course.

Ray Fisher is a freelance writer.

Tags: Baldwin, Brentwood, Thomas Jefferson