Dave Leasure gathered his team and spoke to his players much like any week.
In the wake of absorbing a 63-3 loss to defending WPIAL Class 5A champion Pine-Richland Friday night, the Fox Chapel coach drove a point home to his team assembled around him on their home James M. Burk Stadium turf.
“We’re proud of our kids and how hard they fought,” Leasure said.
The postgame speech delivered to his players marked the end of a trying couple of days for Leasure, his team and its school’s athletic department.
Ahead of the Class 5A Northeast Conference contest, the Fox Chapel and Pine-Richland athletic departments agreed to shorten Friday night’s game in what Rams coach Jon LeDonne classified in a letter to his players’ parents as being “in the spirit of sportsmanship.”
The teams played the first half with two normal 12-minute quarters but played eight-minute second and third quarters with a running clock.
The move was widely criticized on social media in the run-up to the game and was the subject of numerous media reports from outlets across the region.
After opening its season with a 2-1 non-conference record, the Foxes (2-4, 0-3) had dropped a 49-14 decision to Penn Hills and fell, 56-7, to North Hills ahead of its showdown with Pine-Richland (5-1, 3-0).
A season ago, the Rams defeated the Foxes, 71-0.
“What happened here was not a reflection on them,” said Leasure of his players. “It was adults making tough decisions, and I love them.”
Leasure said he was involved in the “decision-making process” to shorten Friday night’s contest. Fox Chapel athletic director Michael O’Brien declined comment following the game, citing his disappointment with the way the decision between the two schools was covered in the media.
“I know these kids, and I knew they were going to fight,” Leasure said. “I want us to have a season, and we do. We lost one starter. It’s not a serious injury. We have enough to finish the season and accomplish some goals we haven’t accomplished around here.”
Fox Chapel wasn’t the only team this week that made a request to shorten its game. Baldwin’s administration asked its remaining Class 5A Allegheny Six Conference opponents to play its games with a running clock.
The request was abandoned, though, before the Highlanders (0-6, 0-1), who are currently riding the longest losing streak in the WPIAL at 25 games, suffered a 49-13 loss to South Fayette (5-1, 1-0) Friday night.
Class 1A Springdale, also mired in a 20-game losing skid, postponed its game against Leechburg this week, and Brownsville canceled its game against Martins Ferry, Ohio, citing an insufficient amount of players needed to contest the game.
Earlier this season, Class 2A Shady Side Academy also postponed a game against perennial Class 1A power Clairton.
LeDonne said while a trend toward postponing or shortening games is becoming more apparent, he hopes it doesn’t continue.
“It’s tough,” said LeDonne, who has won two WPIAL championships with the Rams in addition to a district title at Penn Hills in 2018. “Hey, if we could play bruisers every week we would, but at the same time that’s not good for any team to go through a gauntlet. It’s based on a classification and the number of kids and everything else. We don’t make the schedule. We’ve got to play the schedule.
“The WPIAL gives us an opportunity to schedule one game every year,” he added. “We have a tough time finding an opponent for that, so I’ve been on the other side of this in my first couple of years coaching. You’ve got to figure out a way to keep the kids motivated and keep them going.”
And that was a sentiment echoed by members of each school’s community this week across social media and in the stands at Friday night’s game.
Patrick Lindo, a Sharpsburg resident, attended the game. His grandson, Caleb Portis, is a sophomore starting wide receiver and safety for Fox Chapel.
“I’ve never seen that when I was playing football,” said Lindo, who is a Westinghouse graduate and played football at the City League institution. “We just played. It kind of dims the spirit because, now, either the kids are going to be like, ‘Why did they do that? Do they think we can’t beat them?’ or suppose they upset them? You never know.”
Ryan Thomas, a New Brighton resident, attended the game to watch his nephew senior running back Maclane Miller play for Pine-Richland.
“I think you just let them play,” Thomas said. “Fox Chapel is a big school. They’ve got the numbers. You can’t come into a season and, say, after two or three games, here’s the good teams, and pick who you want to play. You’ve got a conference, play the games and see how it goes.”
Fox Chapel and Pine-Richland players, for their part, did just that.
Rams quarterback Aaron “Oobi” Strader completed 13 of 15 passes for 235 yards against the Foxes. He tossed a 48-yard scoring strike to Tyler Hays in addition to 12-yard and 25-yard touchdown passes to Khalil Taylor.
Miller also rushed for 158 yards and three touchdowns for Pine-Richland. He scored on first-half runs of 3, 4 and 3 yards to lead the Rams to a 42-3 halftime lead.
Foxes senior kicker Harran Zureikat, a Georgia recruit, booted a school-record 54-yard field goal in the second quarter. His kick was just a yard shy of tying the longest field goal in WPIAL history.
“We just kind of stayed focused on our game plan and how we were going to play,” Miller said. “We weren’t really worried about what they were going to do and how the game was going to play out.
“We tried to come into the game and dominate all four quarters,” he added. “I think we did a pretty good job of doing that with the time, and everything, we had during the game.”
Likewise, Fox Chapel senior quarterback Joe Geller said he and his teammates tried to filter out the pregame controversy between their schools’ athletic departments.
“I wouldn’t exactly call it difficult,” Geller said. “We were preparing like we would any other week. Just with this week, we knew what we were going up against.”
The shortened second-half quarters and running clock didn’t change anything, Geller said.
“That didn’t really phase me,” he said.
Leasure’s encouragement following the game was a different story, Geller said.
“I think the rest of our schedule are four really winnable games,” he said. “I think we could and should finish our season 6-4 and hopefully make the playoffs with that wild-card spot and do what this school hasn’t done in a long time.”
The Foxes failed to win a game in each of Geller’s first two seasons before winning two in his junior campaign of 2024.
Geller said he believes his final season at Fox Chapel will prove to be his best.
“I’m just trying to leave something for the guys behind us, do as best as we can and have the best time I know I can have,” he said. “I know you only get to play this game for so long.”
LeDonne said he, too, is ready to move past this week’s controversy.
“There was a lot of attention early on because of my letter,” he said. “I felt that my parents deserved to know what was going on so they’re not in shock when it happens. I sensed some frustrations from Fox Chapel athletics. We’re very open with our program and our parents, and we keep guys informed and let them know what’s going on.
“It is what it is,” he added. “We’re ready to move on.”
John is a copy editor and page designer at the Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at jsanta@unionprogress.com.