Pine Richland Outlasts Moon In 34-24 5A Semifinal Thriller

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Isaac Graves | November 15, 2025

Two of the top teams in Class 5A faced off in one of the two semifinal games on Friday night.

The Pine Richland Rams and Moon Tigers made their way to Chartiers Valley High School for a game with major implications. And they put on quite the show.

Moon opened the game with possession but couldn’t get very far on their opening drive. Pine Richland took over and made quick work of their first drive, as Khalil Taylor made a great catch just two plays into the drive to put the Rams on the board first. Taylor was not done, as the Tigers took over on offense for their next drive. They made it into the red zone, and Taylor, on a chaotic play, came up with the ball and took it the length of the field for a pick-six. The first quarter ended with the Rams leading 14-0.

It was evident that the Tigers were unsatisfied with their first-quarter performance. But they redeemed themselves early on in the second frame, just 13 seconds in, to be exact, as Braeden Stuart snagged it in to make it a one-score game. Moon closed the gap a few minutes later with a field goal. The Rams weren’t going to let them tie the game like that, however. QB Aaron Strader said I will do it myself, and ran the ball 48 yards to the end zone. Moon scored another touchdown with under a minute remaining in the first half. A great catch by Dionte Henry Jr. to settle the score at 21-17 heading into halftime.

The Rams opened up the second half on offense and managed to get deep downfield, but ultimately had to settle for a field goal. It ended up being a rather lengthy third quarter with a large number of penalties by each team. In the back half of the third frame, Aaron Strader scored his second rushing touchdown of the night. Moon answered back with just under two minutes left in the penultimate frame, with a touchdown from Jared Moyer, putting the score at 31-24 after three quarters of play.

The fourth quarter was the most uneventful of them all. The only scoring came from a field goal by the Rams to reach the eventual final score of 34-24.

The Moon Tigers conclude their season with a 9-4 combined record between the regular season and playoffs. The Pine Richland Rams improve to 11-1 combined and will face the Peters Township Indians in the 5A Championship game at Acrisure Stadium next Saturday at 8 p.m.

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