JACKSON TWP — Two unlikely teams are left standing in the WPIALClass AAA girls soccer bracket.

Seneca Valley (16-3-1) faces Upper St. Clair (16-6-0) for the District 7 crown at 4:45 p.m. Saturday at Elizabeth Forward High School.

Those records seem impressive enough, but the four opponents those two teams knocked out in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds — Peters Township, Penn-Trafford, Mount Lebanon and Pine-Richland — were a combined 72-4-5 with four section titles this fall.

In fact, the Raiders and Panthers combined to bounce six of the seven Class AAA section champs, knocking off Franklin Regional and Belle Vernon, respectively, in the first round.

"Our depth has made a difference this year,"Seneca Valley coach Dave Sylvester said. "With some of our previous teams, we'd get an injury or two and we'd have to shuffle some girls around.

"This year, some of the girls on the bench are just as good as the ones who start."

Now in his eighth year as coach, Sylvester never had a team advance past the first round of the WPIALplayoffs before this year.

The 2007 team has done so despite having only three seniors — Logan Gamelier, Rebecca Pecora and Kaitlyn Powell — and a freshman goalkeeper in Keara Lydon.

The Raiders' top two scorers are junior Karisa Fernandez with 19 goals and sophomore Katie Kelly with 14. Junior Aleisha Rees has eight goals, fellow juniors Lauren Royal and Brianna Meurer have seven each.

"The big thing is having a freshman goalkeeper experience a playoff run like this,"Sylvester said. "This will really pay off for her down the road."

David Gray is in his fourth season as Upper St. Clair coach. The Panthers were 48-8-3 under his guidance the past three years before putting a young team on the field this season.

"We start four sophomores and four juniors,"Gray said. "We've gotten better as the season has gone on. I think we and Seneca Valley are peaking at the right time."

Dana Saunders leads the Panthers with 15 goals, and E.B. Kline has scored nine. But it was reserve forward Jess Burdette who scored the only goal in USC's 1-0 win over Pine-Richland in the semifinals.

"I think that was her first goal all year,"Gray said. "That's the way it's gone for us. We're very balanced."

Pine-Richland knocked Upper St. Clair out of the playoffs the past two years on the way to posting back-to-back WPIALchampionships.

Seneca Valley and Upper St. Clair have posted similar numbers this year. The Raiders have scored 64 goals and allowed 21. The Panthers have netted 70 goals and allowed 22.

The teams scrimmaged each other in the preseason, but have not met since.

"I'll go back and listen to the Internet broadcast of their last game,"Sylvester said. "My understanding is they like to play six or seven girls behind the ball all the time.

"I'm hoping this isn't a 1-0 game. Hopefully, we can score a goal early and force them to open up a little bit," he added. "If we force them out of that defensive style and they leave themselves open, that's good for us."

Including the playoffs, Seneca Valley has scored 15 goals in its last four games. Upper St. Clair has scored nine goals in six games since trouncing Trinity 10-0 on Oct. 12.

Gray said he has no idea how Saturday's game will play out.

"High school soccer is so unpredictable,"he said. "Any team can show up on any given night at this point and win. We got beat 6-0 in a game earlier this year and it shouldn't have happened.

"Sometimes somebody gets on a roll against you, you make a couple of mistakes and it snowballs."

The Panthers' girls soccer program has won seven WPIALtitles since 1987, the last one coming in 2002. As an athletic program, Upper St. Clair has won 83 WPIAL crowns and nine state championships.