Everybody At Penn Hills Is Happy

On December 7th 2018, Penn Hills defeated Manheim Central in the PIAA 5A football championship game by a score of 36-31.

Source: TRIB LIVE HSSN

The 2018 Penn Hills football team completed their ultimate goal on Friday December 7th 2018 as they won the PIAA 5A football championship game against Manheim Central by a score of 36-31. After this big win by the Penn Hills football team, I think we could all agree by saying that the whole community of Penn Hills is extremely happy.

Back in August, Daequan Hardy, Corey Thomas Jr. and Hollis Mathis were at Kennywood Park to talk about high school football. They were surrounded by other WPIAL football stars throughout other schools. That program was sponsored by the Trib Live HSSN. Little did those three Penn Hills guys know that they were going to win a state championship in football.

If you really look at some of the highlights of a lot of the athletes on Penn Hills football team, you can see that they have the ability to play football at the Division 1 collegiate level. The players on the team knew that they had the talent to win a state championship and all that they had to do was win every single game and that is what they did.

Daequan Hardy balled out in the state championship game against Manheim Central as he scored on 2 receiving touchdowns, scored on a kickoff return for a touchdown and returned an interception for a touchdown in the game. That interception return that Hardy scored for a touchdown was a 100 yard interception. That is some James Harrison type of football. Penn Hills was winning by a score 36-14 and all of a sudden Manheim Central was making a comeback as they scored 17 straight points; but, the boys from Penn Hills decided to hold on and win the game.

These football players at Penn Hills could not be any happier as they all will be recorded into the history books. Hollis Mathis, the quarterback at Penn Hills, might have not have the quarterback stats like Jamie Diven (South Fayette) or Tyler Bradley (OLSH) or Eric Wilson (Sto-Rox); but, what Hollis Mathis did have that no other WPIAL quarterback could do was find ways to help his team win games by being clutch and giving his teammates advice in both the offensive side of the ball and defensive side of the ball. So in conclusion, this year, Hollis Mathis was the clutchest quarterback in the WPIAL.

It's the same situation with Terry "Tank" Smith, the running back at Penn Hills. Tank might not have had the rushing statistics like Max Shaw (Thomas Jefferson) or Noah Whiteleather (Rochester) or Dustin Shoaf (Yough); but, what Tank did had that no other WPIAL running back could do was simply act clutch in big situations.

This Penn Hills football team did not dominate every single game they played; but, they did win every single game and at the end of the day that's all that really matters. Going into the season, Penn Hills, was the team that everybody wanted to pay attention too and the team showed during every single game that you had made the right decision to come watch their football games.

Corey Thomas Jr., the wide receiver and defensive back for Penn Hills, is now a 2x WPIAL champion and 1x State championship in the game of football. Before the season started, I had asked Corey Thomas Jr. in an interview what it would mean if he could win a WPIAL football championship for two different schools and he responded by saying, "It would mean a lot to me if I was able to do that. It would mean so much for our community to be able to win a WPIAL championship. And for every senior the goal is to go out with a championship." He had made history for himself by winning 2 WPIAL football championship for two different high schools as he previously won a WPIAL football championship for Central Catholic in 2016. Seriously though, name another WPIAL football player that has won a WPIAL football championship at two different schools. If you probably think about it for a while, you could probably think of someone besides Corey Thomas Jr. Now with the season over, he can finally make a decision in which he college he wants to play football at.

Penn Hills will be back next year trying to win another WPIAL and PIAA football championship as all the teams that are in their classification are going to try and hunt them down.