A New WPIAL Dynasty is Forming as Avonworth Wins Back-to-Back Titles
PITTSBURGH — Everyone knows of the annual powerhouses around the WPIAL such as Pittsburgh Central Catholic and Aliquippa, but a new dynasty is quickly forming out in Avonworth.
The Antelopes are slowly becoming accustomed to playing at Acrisure Stadium as Saturday’s 30-6 stomping of Imani Christian in the 2025 WPIAL Class-3A Championship marked the school’s second-straight WPIAL title and fourth-consecutive trip to the championship game.
“It has become almost like a second home field,” senior lineman Peter Bonnet said. “The first time around, the lights got to us a little. Like it was a huge stage but at this point, I know I do and I am sure these guys do too, we just walk out and play our game normally so we are real comfortable here.”
Dynasties are not formed overnight. Dynasties are formed when the collective group completely buys in and embraces the challenges ahead, together.
That is how the latest WPIAL dynasty came together under Avonworth head coach Duke Johncour.
“We treat our kids like a family, we preach it all of the time,” Johncour said. “I told them in the locker room, love always wins and these kids love each other. They spend all of the time in the world together. They are good examples, they work in the weight room and they bought into what we do.”
The Lopes are definitely a team loaded with talent, but they are not a team that is filled with highly-recruited players like schools such as Imani Christian. That is what makes the current run that the program is on even more impressive.
While the Lopes took down a Saints’ squad that has former Penn State commit Gabe Jenkins and North Carolina pledge David Davis, Imani Christian is not the only prominent team that the Lopes dismantled along the way to another title.
Earlier in the season, Avonworth defeated Class-4A semifinalist Thomas Jefferson along with the current 4A champs Aliquippa.
Would the Lopes have won the Class-4A title? Who knows, and Johncour said that he does not think about things that way but he does know that the difficult schedule that his team ran through helped them get to the point that they are at.
“Our schedule across the board, West Mifflin was a good team to start out with, and then Aliquippa and Thomas Jefferson,” Johncour started. “Then, our conference, you saw last week, three of our four teams were still in it. It was a tough sledding in our conference but our kids have bought in and they work hard.”
What also makes this Antelopes team special is that they do not operate like a normal Class-3A school that is one-dimensional. The Lopes can run, pass, defend and basically do everything else that a premier football team needs to do.
“We are just balanced across the board, offensively and defensively,” Johncour said. “We are not hiding anybody. Usually a coach has to hide a defensive tackle or an outside linebacker or a corner. You are hiding them somewhere. We are not hiding anybody and that is saying something.”
The Lopes, led by seniors Luca Neal, Cooper Scharding, Bonnet and many others, still get to continue their journey into the PIAA state playoffs which winning the “big one” has always been this team’s main goal, but do not expect the Lopes to slow down even after this season.
“We all talk about it when we hangout, like this is cool and all to get the [WPIAL] trophy but we all have aspirations for the big state title,” Scharding said. “We are hungry for that, we are excited about this but we got bigger steps ahead.”
