This week’s First Commonwealth Athlete of the Week is Austin Hancock, a senior quarterback for the Peters Township football team.

Hancock entered the 2010 season regarded as one of the premier gunslingers in Class AAAA, and on Friday he fired some critical shots to help land a big victory for the Indians’ program in its Great Southern Conference opener.

He connected on nine of his 11 passes for 116 yards and ran for the go-ahead score in a 21-14 Week 5 win over visiting Bethel Park, his team’s first against the Black Hawks since returning to Quad-A two years ago and arguably its highest quality win in that span.  After finding the end zone on his feet, Hancock added a two-point toss to Andrew Erenberg just for good measure.

With Peters behind 14-13 in the fourth quarter Hancock threw a successful 49-yard bomb to receiver Chad Loether to get the Indians inside Bethel territory.  Shortly thereafter he knifed his way through the middle of the Hawks’ defensive line and broke free for a 22-yard touchdown run with just over five minutes left.

The 6′-3″, 220-pound quarterback has completed 38 of 49 passes (77.6 percent) on the campaign for four touchdowns and 588 yards, which puts him among the top ten QB’s in the classification and top 25 in the WPIAL in terms of total yardage.

In addition, Hancock is a talented linebacker, which is an uncommon defensive position to play for quarterbacks at the high school level, and is also a member of the Peters Township baseball team, which reached the WPIAL Class AAAA Semifinals last season.

Tune into the next edition of The Post-Gazette High School Football Show Presented by First Commonwealth Bank this Saturday morning 8:00-10:00 on SportsRadio 93.7 The Fan and 937thefan.com, as the Post-Gazette’s Mike White and MSA’s Don Rebel name our next First Commonwealth Athlete of the Week!