A-K Valley notebook: Deer Lakes boys soccer gets 1st home playoff game

By: HSSN Staff
Sunday, October 21, 2018 | 11:00 PM

Deer Lakes grew accustomed to traveling to play in the WPIAL boys soccer playoffs in the past, but there’s no place like home for the Lancers on Monday.

The second-seeded Lancers will host No. 15 Beth-Center in a WPIAL Class AA first-round game at 8 p.m. Monday.

While Lancer Stadium hosted neutral-site playoff games in the past, this marks the first time one of Deer Lakes’ soccer teams will play on its home turf in the postseason.

“That means the world to us,” Deer Lakes coach Jordan Wiegand said. “We looked at some of those teams like (Quaker Valley) and South Park and how they were able to host last year. To see when (the brackets) came out, to see not only the two seed but Deer Lakes (hosting), that was awesome. We’ve been starting to pack a stronger crowd here, as much as you can for soccer games in Western Pa. We really think we’re going to drive a lot of numbers to this game.”

Kiski Area hosted a girls soccer doubleheader Saturday, with the Class AA first-round game between Burrell and Yough — a 1-0 Burrell victory — preceding the Cavaliers’ 4-0 win in a Class AAA first-round game against Plum.

It was the second girls soccer home playoff game for Kiski Area, but the first at its new on-campus turf field. The Cavaliers played Upper St. Clair in a 2006 first-round game at Davis Field in Vandergrift.

Planting the seeds

The WPIAL volleyball committee will meet Monday and release the brackets for the upcoming postseason, which begins with preliminary-round matches Tuesday.

Knoch and Freeport, the defending PIAA champions in Class AAA and AA, respectively, figure to earn the top seeds in those classifications.

Other Alle-Kiski Valley playoff qualifiers include Kiski Area in Class AAA, Deer Lakes and Burrell in Class AA and Leechburg in Class A.

Shaw honored

Kiski Area honored fallen New Kensington police officer Brian Shaw by presenting his family with a game ball at Friday’s football game against Mars at Richard J. Dilts Field.

Shaw, a former three-sport athlete at Burrell who played football at Slippery Rock, was killed in the line of duty in November 2017.

Strong debut

Fox Chapel senior Sarena Seeger hopes practice will make perfect when she returns to Cal (Pa.) on Thursday for the WPIAL Class AAA cross country championships.

Seeger took first place in the Tri-State Coaches Association championships Thursday at the same venue, finishing the difficult course in 19 minutes, 18.98 seconds.

“I hadn’t run here since my freshman season, so I was eager to see how it was,” Seeger said. “You have to be smart when you run this race. You want to start out strong, but you don’t want to overdo it. You want to have something left.”

Kuhn offered

Kiski Area senior Troy Kuhn received his first football Division I scholarship offer on Friday from Duquesne.

The 6-foot-4, 190-pound tight end/linebacker ranks second on the Cavaliers (3-6) in receiving with 25 catches for 531 yards and three touchdowns. He also has 46 tackles and four sacks.

Kuhn, also a wrestler at Kiski Area, is the younger brother of former Youngstown State tight end Shane Kuhn and Slippery Rock sophomore defensive end Chad Kuhn.

Paul Schofield contributed. Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Doug at dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter @dgulasy_Trib.

Tags: Deer Lakes, Kiski School