Chris Harlan stories, Page 109

Seton LaSalle’s Dom Popa, whose brother stars for Pitt, committed Monday to also play baseball for the Panthers. The younger brother is a rising senior who batted .470 for the Rebels, who went 21-3 and won the WPIAL Class 2A title this past spring. The outfielder led his team in...

The PIAA listened to critical public comments made by Diego Bledsoe’s father and then upheld a WPIAL decision that leaves the Gateway transfer ineligible to play football. Bledsoe, a rising junior who transferred from Steel Valley, had a PIAA hearing Tuesday in Mechanicsburg. The WPIAL had ruled Bledsoe ineligible June...

The PIAA overturned a WPIAL decision and lifted the suspension given to Central Catholic boys basketball coach Brian Urso. While investigating recruiting allegations, the WPIAL board in June ordered Central Catholic to suspend the first-year coach for one scrimmage and two regular-season games for contacting eighth-grade athletes. But Central Catholic’s...

Left idle by forfeits, McGuffey and Clairton will have Week 1 football games after all. The two teams announced Monday that they will play one another Aug. 30 at McGuffey. Kickoff is 7 p.m. McGuffey was left without a Week 1 game when Northgate announced last week that it would...

Joe Namath starred there in the 1960s and Robert Foster picked Alabama earlier this decade, but Crimson Tide football offers don’t appear all that often in the WPIAL. Saturday, one arrived. Gateway’s Derrick Davis announced a scholarship offer from Alabama, adding to the rising junior’s status as one of Pennsylvania’s...

North Catholic’s Kylee Lewandowski, one of the WPIAL’s top rising seniors, committed Saturday to Richmond. The 6-foot-1 guard had more than a dozen offers. She chose the Spiders over offers from Bryant, Bucknell, Denver, Fairfield, Fordham, Hartford, Marshall, Miami (Ohio), Niagara, Quinnipiac, Xavier and Western Michigan. Lewandowski announced her decision...

The WPIAL will change the way it schedules nonconference football games after a team strategically forfeited for the second time in two years. Northgate decided to forfeit its Aug. 30 football game against McGuffey to avoid injuries to an already thin roster. The decision was made by the school’s administration,...

Peters Township’s Josh Casilli committed Thursday to Penn, choosing an Ivy League path that was wildly successful for another WPIAL wide receiver just a few years ago. Casilli chose the Quakers from a list of offers that included Duquesne, Robert Morris, Air Force, Cornell, Holy Cross, Rhode Island, Lafayette, Sacred...

High school football teams have worked out together for months in weight rooms and practice fields, but suddenly those offseason sessions have a more serious tone. Camp is only three weeks away. “Absolutely, things start to heat up,” Norwin quarterback Jake Salopek said. “We start to work a little bit...

Quaker Valley has another Washington with Division I basketball talent. Rising junior Corinne Washington, the sister of former Quakers star Coletrane Washingon, added a pair of college offers from Bethune-Cookman and Mount St. Mary’s. The 5-foot-11 guard already held an offer from Western Michigan. She was a double-digit scorer as...

In two weeks, when WPIAL football teams start heat acclimation, Armstrong coach Frank Fabian will be there for his fifth season with the River Hawks. Fabian stepped down during the winter, wanting to spend more time with his young family, but his resignation was short-lived. Within weeks, his mind was...

The Tribune-Review and the TribLive High School Sports Network are profiling each member of the 25-player Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star team. The players will be recognized July 23 during a HSSN Media Day live broadcast at Kennywood Park. As a youngster at Sto-Rox football games, Eric Wilson watched as...

North Catholic’s Kylee Lewandowski, now in the heart of AAU basketball season, added two more college offers. The 6-foot-1 guard announced offers from Denver and Miami (Ohio) in the past week, pushing her scholarship total to more than a dozen. Lewandowski, a Trib 10 all-star, will be a senior in...

The PIAA believes junior high baseball players shouldn’t throw as many pitches as high school hurlers, so a separate pitch count was established this week. Starting next spring, Pennsylvania’s junior high/middle school pitchers will be limited to 75 pitches in a day and 150 in a calendar week (Sunday through...

Early indications say the WPIAL Class of 2023 will be special. That group is just now entering high school this fall, but at least three basketball players from that incoming freshman class already have Division I offers. Laurel Highlands’ Rodney Gallagher, Indiana’s Eve Fiala and North Allegheny’s Jasmine Timmerson all...

The high school baseball regular season will continue to have a 20-game limit after the PIAA denied a request to add more contests. The PIAA board on Wednesday rejected a recommendation from the PIAA baseball committee that would have increased the regular-season maximum to 24 games next season. “The board...

Waynesburg’s Daniel Layton became the most talked about track star in the WPIAL this spring, a situation neither he nor his father could have imagined. Layton drew support from track fans all around Western Pennsylvania who wanted to see the reigning WPIAL 110-meter hurdle champion have a chance to defend...

A year after tearing an ACL, Trinity basketball standout Riley DeRubbo celebrated another milestone Wednesday when she committed to Atlantic 10 champion Fordham. The 5-foot-9 guard will be a senior in the fall. She announced her commitment on Twitter. DeRubbo, who injured her knee in AAU season last summer, missed...

WPIAL soccer referees must keep using the “double dual” officiating system, at least for now. The PIAA board on Wednesday tabled a request for a pilot program in the WPIAL that would have transitioned referees to the “diagonal system of control” used by many soccer organizations worldwide. The PIAA could...

The PIAA hearing scheduled Wednesday for Moon basketball standout Donovan Johnson was postponed. “They informed me first thing this morning that their attorney could not make it, so they were unable to come,” PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said. “We’re going to have to reschedule it.” A new date was...

Maybe the biggest story of track season came months earlier when the WPIAL decided to move the individual championship meet to Slippery Rock. Baldwin had hosted the Class AAA meet 30 out of 32 years since 1987 (excluding 1989-90), and the Class AA competition moved there in 2009. Both relocated...

Thomas Jefferson’s Shane Stump, one of the WPIAL’s top quarterbacks, announced his third college offer from Dayton. The 6-foot-1, 200-pound rising senior added the Flyers on Monday to a list that already included Howard and Valparaiso. Stump passed for 1,833 yards and 24 touchdowns last season as the Jaguars went...