Wednesday, August 27, 2003

By Mike White, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

At Shenango High School, they still have Saturday night fever.

Shenango, located in New Castle, is the only WPIAL school that still plays all of its home games on Saturday nights. Over the past 15 years, more and more teams that played home games Saturday afternoons have installed lights at their stadiums in order to play Friday night games.

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But for Shenango, Saturday night is all right.

"It's just a tradition and something they don't want to change here," said Shenango Coach Brian Cooper, in his fifth season. "It's special playing on Saturday nights. Plus, it's somewhat of an advantage because other teams hate playing on Saturday nights."

Cooper played football at Wilmington High School and twice played games at Shenango on Saturday nights.

"I know we didn't like it at all and I remember our coaches hated it," Cooper said.

Cooper said Shenango attracts good crowds on Saturday nights.

"This community is always excited about football season. It's a great community," Cooper said. "There was a lot of excitement in the air last year and there is this year as well."

There is reason for excitement this season. Shenango won the Tri-County North Conference championship last year and made it to the WPIAL quarterfinals before losing to Aliquippa, 38-32. A number of Shenango's top players are back this season, including four seniors who are expected to have big seasons. They are offensive tackle-nose guard Doug Petrick (6-5, 290), receiver-defensive back Terry Grossetti (6-4, 180), fullback-linebacker David Dado (5-11, 220) and halfback-defensive back David Flora (5-9, 165).

"These are guys who are coming back with a lot of experience," Cooper said. "The last two years we've been forced into a situation where we had to play a lot of sophomores. It might not have been good at the time, but it is paying off now."

Dado already is the school's all-time leading tackler with 162. Flora is a speedy running back who has run the 40 in 4.5 seconds.

Some Division I college are interested in Petrick, who won the WPIAL Class AA discus championship in the spring.

Grossetti was Shenango's top receiver a year ago. "He has the best hands I've ever seen on anybody. He just has great instincts to the ball," Cooper said.

Shenango begins the season ranked fifth in the Post-Gazette Class AA top five.

"We definitely have the weapons to repeat what we did last year if our line comes around," Cooper said. "We feel we have enough weapons to get to the playoffs and cause some havoc."

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