Peters Township Head Coach Talks WPIAL Teammates Targeted by Pitt

Two of the best in-state prospects on the Pitt Panthers 2026 offer board happen to be teammates.

Last year, Lucas Shanafelt and Reston Lehman played excellent football at Peters Township, lifting the Indians to an 11-2 record and a state championship appearance, falling just short of the ultimate goal in a 20-9 loss to Pine-Richland.

For head coach TJ Plack, his squad has a very real shot of going the distance this year with Shanafelt and Lehman leading the way.

So far, the Pennsylvania teammates have garnered over two dozen scholarship offers.

Lehman has offers from both Pitt and Penn State along with Boston College, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska, Purdue, Rutgers, Syracuse, UCLA, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and others.

Currently, Shanafelt has received offers from Akron, Harvard, Miami of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Pitt, Toledo, West Virginia, and others.

Shanafelt will be in Pittsburgh for an unofficial visit on March 15. Later, both Rehman and Shanafelt will take official visits on June 5-7.

To learn more about both standouts, Inside the Panthers spoke with Coach Plack on Sunday.

Watching Lucas Shanafelt’s film, then taking a look at Reston Lehman when Pitt offered, I think those two are excellent football players. They’re both 6-foot-4, well over 200 pounds, they can run, they’re athletic, and they make big-time plays for you.

“For you as the head coach, it must be thrilling to have both back for another year, right?
"Yeah, Reston will be a four-year starter for us."
“His freshman year, he was pretty good but he just didn't know football. He just always ran through people, around people. So, that year was just like, ‘Okay, how do I get off blocks? How do I take on blocks?’ Things like that. He’s playing with these seniors and things like that, but he's been a dream for us.
“Lucas has just been a young man that has grown into what he looks like today. (He) came in as a skinny wide receiver, three-sport athlete.
“We had another outside linebacker, (2025 Stanford signee) Mickey Vaccarello. We had to find a place for Lucas, so we moved down to our 4i for us, our down tackle, and he had a great year. He's going to move back out to where Mickey played opposite Reston (at outside linebacker).
“We’ve just been blessed with long, physical, athletic outside linebackers for probably about six, seven years now. I think we're about ready to run out after these two guys. They've been fantastic. They really have.”

Pitt Panthers Tight End Recruit Lucas Shanafelt — X: @ShanafeltLucas

Let's start with Lucas. Looking at his profile, he's got a Harvard offer among other Ivy League offers. He plays both ways. You can see on film, he’s a really smart football player. Tell me a little bit more about him. He seems like a really interesting prospect.

“Just to piggyback on what I was talking about with both of them earlier, they both started out as wide receivers. That’s the athletic part. Reston’s was short-lived, but Lucas played three years for us as a wideout.
“Two years ago, we lost in the state championship. We had, like, eight receivers. We did not need to use him. But last year, he was one of our guys and we’re going to move him back down to tight end (which is) probably where he belongs. Lucas was a three-sport athlete, baseball, basketball, football, always in the weight room, always out at practice, always working out with somebody.
“It was always, ‘The deck is stacked against me. I have a Mickey Vaccaro. I have a Reston Lehman, and there's nowhere for me to play. Yes, coach, I'll go down and play down tackle even though I'm a wide receiver."
“I don't think anyone's ever seen that. I mean, honestly, there's not too many where they're an outside receiver and he plays a three-technique, 4i for us. So, he's a team player. His family's been through the system. He had an older brother who played on the ’23 team, a wide receiver, did a lot for us. They're just guys in a family that bought into everything. And you can win with those guys. Lucas is just a great young man, intelligent as you can see by some of his initial offers."
“Honestly, when people came in to see Reston, I'm like, ‘Coach, I'd like you to bump into this other guy. You know, he passes the eye test.’ And they're like, ‘Yeah, he's a damn good looking kid.’ Then they go back and watch his tape, and then I get a message, like, ‘He’s pretty damn good,’ you know?
“So, he was kind of unknown even throughout the season playing down tackle, but he’s kind of known now people see his tape. I think he's going to have a really, really good senior year playing at an edge/outside ‘backer for us where he belongs and playing at an inline tight end/H-Back that guy, in the slot at times, and just owning the middle of the field on offense. So, I think we did him a disservice, you can say that, playing outside receiver and then down tackle just out of necessity, but I think he's going to have a heck of a senior year playing right where he needs to be.”

At the next level, obviously, Lucas Shanafelt could play on defense. I’m sure that’s where he’s best known as a prospect right now given his production last year. But offensively, do you see him as a flex tight end recruit who also gets some H-Back work at the college level? Could he carve out a niche that way?

“His big adjustment, honestly, is going to be but physicality but, ‘Okay, how do I block?’ Because he's blocked corners, he's blocked safeties before…But we never had him come in motion, kick out a defensive end, lead up onto a ‘backer.
“So, (in) the off-season, first part of the season, (we’ll be) getting him acclimated to that. I know he's got the best hands on the team. Him and Reston have the best hands on the team, honestly, without a doubt. I know he can catch the ball.
“I know he can run the routes that we need him to run. I know he can block those third-level guys, no problem, does a great job. I know we can run screen game to him, leak him out. He could be a vertical threat still. So, his learning curve is going to be blocking in-the-box defenders, which I think he'll be able to handle without a doubt. It’s just going to be something new for him.”

Pitt Panthers Linebacker Recruit Reston Lehman — IG: lehman.reston

Reston is an excellent prospect. One thing I had a hard time with was simply deciding which position he’ll fit best at the next level whether it’s an outside linebacker position, hybrid linebacker, or edge. At 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, many recruits are destined to develop into edge players. But given how mobile and athletic he is, I’m not sure that’s the case with Reston Lehman. Thoughts?

“Initial thoughts are he's a 3-4 (pass) rush to the weak side, weak (side) edge player, a guy that can drop into the boundary, do some things there. But there’s been a couple of schools that…came in, we worked them out, they want to see his hips, and it’s like, ‘Can he play Mike? Does he have that ability?’
“People have seen him move and they've offered immediately, guys that were looking at him to play mike linebacker. Also, on the edge, I think he has that versatility. You know, what we do on defense is a little bit different. He does play on the edge, but he does drop and he does rush and he does play against the run. So, the young man is tremendous.
“I think whatever you want him to do, he can do. I'm being honest, I've never seen a kid like him before. Everything he does, he goes skiing, he wins at skiing, he places first or second…He was always been a sprinter in junior high, on the track team. He picked up the javelin last year. He qualified for state. He’s a team captain on that. They won state in the first year. So, whatever he does, he excels in.
“Whether he's a 3-4 rush (end) and drops in the boundary, Mike (linebacker), I think he can do it. If I was a betting man, I’d put a lot of money on it. And the same with Lucas. Lucas can drop. He does a great job. At times, we would run a third-down package, and Reston is a really good pass rusher. We would throw (Lehman) down into our 4i and rush him to be the gap guy and allow Lucas to drop. He's also got the ability to do a lot of good things.
Again, with both of their backgrounds, we like to start guys as skill guys and just move them down closer to the line of scrimmage. You get that speed value. You’ve got your fast guys that grew a little bit. Okay, now you have a fast linebacker, versatile linebacker, or in Lucas's case, a versatile defensive tackle or tight end, a versatile tight end.
“So, I think we have both of those guys, I hate to speak about both of them the same, but they're both guys cut from the same mold. They were outside guys, skilled guys, downhill guys that now are using their speed in the box to be successful and destructive. They're very similar, very similar and they both play with an edge which is why they're getting recruited by these guys.”

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