Pine-Richland Blanks Franklin Regional to Reach 5A Semifinals

Tagged under: District 7, Gameday Hub, News, Playoffs

Blake Fuchs | November 9, 2024

All game photos were taken by rgt_pics on Instagram.

Pine-Richland dominated their first 2024 playoff game start to finish, winning their 5A quarterfinal match 42-0 against Franklin Regional.

Entering the WPIAL 5A playoffs, Pine-Richland was considered one of the best teams in the section. Evidently the WPIAL agreed, giving the Rams the 1 seed over undefeated Upper St. Clair which was surprising to many. Pine-Richland had only one loss on the year against 6A rival North Allegheny, and winning the Northeast Conference created a strong enough resume to take the top seed over the Panthers. The Rams had a bye the previous week, which allowed starting sophomore quarterback Aaron “Oobi” Strader the chance to rest after being injured toward the end of the North Allegheny loss. 

Franklin Regional was the surprise second-round team. Having the only upset in the previous week’s games, the 9 seeded Panthers won against their 8 seed opponent North Hills 17-16 in a close defensive battle. It was their first playoff victory since 2018, and did so in dramatic fashion. Franklin Regional finished third in the 5A Northeast Conference with an overall record of 7-3 along with a 4-2 conference record. However, all their wins came against teams without a winning record, including four one-score games. Franklin Regional’s resume didn’t look very good, but if they could beat the 5A team who came closest to winning against Pine-Richland, could they pull off another big upset?

Franklin Regional started with the ball first but three incompletions by senior quarterback Chase Lemke later, they punted. Pine-Richland only needed four plays to score their first touchdown, three being taken by junior running back Mac Miller, including the 9 yard rushing touchdown.

This exact same thing happened on the next pair of drives. Lemke elected to hand the ball off to senior running back Jude Gentile but the Franklin Regional drive stalled afterwards and led to a punt. Pine-Richland then marched into Panthers territory after starting at their own 48, Miller running into the same corner of the end zone as he did previously, only taking a direct snap instead of being handed off the ball. 

Franklin Regional punted on their third drive, but Pine-Richland did not have a rushing touchdown. Instead, on their first play Strader faked the handoff to Miller and threw to receiver Lawrence “Jay” Timmons, who ducked his way out of a tackle and outran two other defenders to go 52 yards for six. Three plays later, Lemke overthrew his targeted receiver and instead connected with Timmons, who returned it for a touchdown. The Rams now were one touchdown away from the mercy rule with a bit over a minute left in the first quarter.

Jay Timmons after scoring a 52 yard receiving touchdown.

One Franklin Regional three and out later, Pine-Richland’s offense returned to the field looking to hit the mercy rule, which they would achieve with a new quarterback: Senior Sam Heckert. Heckert normally does not play quarterback and instead usually is only on defense, and holds the second place on PR’s career tackles list. Surprisingly Heckert was able to make some excellent throws, including a 39 yard bomb in double coverage to Jalen Neals that could have gone for a touchdown if there weren’t blockers Neals ran into. The Rams weren’t initially able to get in but Miller briefly returned to take another direct snap from two yards out to go up 35. 

Both sides continued putting in backups since the game already looked like a Pine-Richland win. The next time the Rams got the ball it started at the Franklin Regional 23 due to a failed fourth down conversion, Heckert needed only one play to connect with Timmons for the final scoring play of the game, the reception coming with 7 minutes remaining in the first half.

42-0 continued to be the score for the rest of the game, both teams turning the ball back and forth for the remainder of the first half and all of the second half, more substitutes coming in for both sides. With the mercy rule implemented, both teams only got two drives before the clock hit double zeroes.

Franklin Regional had a game. They really didn’t have much with their triple option offense being effectively shut down by Pine-Richland’s defense, and while Gentile played at a consistent level around him there wasn’t anyone at his ability to support him. On the defensive side of the ball senior Macallister Bresnahan provided decent pressures to freshman backup quarterbacks Carson Campbell and Cooper Stiscack, but similarly to Gentile there wasn’t anyone else at his level to contribute effectively. Franklin Regional had a solid season on paper and while the wins were against lower-level teams, the playoff win should be celebrated as the biggest victory of them all.

Pine-Richland did what they needed to do. They showed up, put big points on the board, replaced the starters with backups, then left. It was a good way to show the lack of rust after the bye week and Strader being somewhat back is reassuring for next week when they play the 5th seeded Allegheny Six Conference Team Bethel Park, who the Rams blew out last year in their first round playoff game 51-6. The Black Hawks have had over 20 point margins in both their previous two playoff games including an upset over Big East Conference champion and 4 seed Woodland Hills in their quarterfinal game. The third consecutive WPIAL 5A championship appearance is that much closer for Pine-Richland, and based on this game’s performance there should be optimism for the top seeded team.

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