Football fans lining up for coveted Central Valley vs. Aliquippa tickets

By: Chris Harlan
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 | 4:01 PM

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The hottest ticket in Beaver County isn’t for a British pop star or an 80’s rock band back on tour.

The top ticket is for a high school football game between rivals Aliquippa and Central Valley, two undefeated state champions who’ll play for a conference title Friday night. When Aliquippa announced that tickets would go on sale at 5 p.m. Monday, fans started lining up around 3.

“The line looked like they were tickets for a concert,” Quips coach Mike Warfield said with a laugh.

Aliquippa (8-0) is the defending state champion in Class 4A. Central Valley (9-0) won the state 3A title a year ago. This year, they’re both in Class 4A and both in the Parkway Conference.

“It’s exciting for both communities,” Warfield said. “I’m really, really excited to see our kids play.”

The Aliquippa athletic office phone has rung almost continuously, said athletic director Jennifer Damico. Making ticket demand hotter is that there were only 2,500 available in total for both schools.

That’s the seating capacity of Freedom’s stadium, which has served as Aliquippa’s temporary home field this season while Aschman Stadium is rebuilt.

“We had to put a limit on how many you can buy at one time,” said Damico, adding that the school distributed around 900 tickets on Monday alone. Aliquippa kept 1,500 tickets, and Central Valley received 1,000.

Damico said there was thought given to moving the game to a larger venue, but she pointed out there would be logistical issues with hiring security and other game-day necessities on short notice.

Also, the school was appreciative that Freedom opened its doors in the first place, so the Quips wanted to stick to their agreement. Freedom runs the concession stand as a fundraiser.

“It’s sort of a smaller stadium but Freedom has been good to us, so we didn’t want to move it,” Warfield said. “They were there for us when we needed them, so we want to give them the opportunity to host it.”

This is senior night for Aliquippa, so the school gave every senior football player and cheerleader eight tickets free of charge, Damico said. All other tickets were being sold at the two schools, and no tickets will be available at the gate.

“My biggest concern is our families, our parents, our students,” Damico said. “So, I wanted to make it convenient for them to get the tickets first. I’m not really interested in entertaining people who just don’t have anything to do on Friday and want to buy a ticket at the gate.”

Central Valley has seen similar demand.

The school is limiting initial ticket sales to four apiece for senior participants and two for underclassmen. If they all purchased their full allotment, the total is around 480, athletic director Sam Cercone said.

Once those are distributed, the school plans to open sales to all students at lunch Thursday. Any leftover tickets will be sold to the public at 6 p.m. Thursday.

“I’ve got more friends this week than you could shake a stick at,” Cercone said. “I’m getting all kinds of different requests. It’s tough but we feel that it’s important that parents who have participants in the game get first crack. That’s how we did it for the covid years.”

Cercone has worked as Central Valley’s athletic director since Center and Monaca merged in 2010. The football team has since won five WPIAL titles and two state championships, but Cercone said this is the most-coveted ticket in that span.

“Without a doubt,” he said, “and we’ve had some big games.”

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: Aliquippa, Central Valley