Chris Harlan stories, Page 113

Central Catholic’s Will Ray is the lastest WPIAL baseball recruit heading south. The left-handed hitting outfielder committed Monday to Wake Forest, continuing a trend that’s seen ACC and SEC schools recruit players from Western Pennsylvania. Among them, Blackhawk graduate Michael Turconi was a freshman for the Demon Deacons this past...

Some sprinters will have an extra 10 meters to make their relay exchange, the National Federation of State High School Associations decided. The NFHS followed the NCAA’s lead and extended exchange zones in the shortest relays from 20 to 30 meters. The change affects only relays with legs of 200...

Woodland Hills’ next boys basketball coach might already work in the school’s athletic department. Athletic director Ron Coursey, who previously coached basketball at Propel Andrew Street and Greater Works, is among the candidates for the job. The school board is expected to make a decision soon. The group meets July...

The Western Pennsylvania vs. Everyone Football Showcase is officially too big for one stadium. The multi-game Week Zero event was held entirely at Woodland Hills’ Wolvarena last season, but this year will grow to include two games at North Allegheny’s Newman Stadium. All combined, there are eight games on Aug....

Two rising seniors in the WPIAL each received their first Division I football offers this week from St. Francis. Baldwin’s Naseer Penn and Bethel Park’s Jehvonn Lewis announced offers days apart from the Red Flash, an FCS program in the Northeast Conference. Lewis (5-10, 160) plays running back and defensive...

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 Trib HSSN Media Day at Kennywood Park. Central Catholic’s Elliot Donald noticed a video on Twitter this week that showed...

Pine-Richland pitcher Tommy Beam, who helped the Rams win a WPIAL title this spring, committed Friday to West Virginia. Beam will be a junior in the fall. The 6-foot-5 right-hander went 5-3 with a 1.48 ERA and 66 strikeouts in 47 1/3 innings. He earned the win in the WPIAL...

Fifteen years had passed since Darrelle Revis last played WPIAL football, but his name came up often last December in Hershey. Penn Hills senior Daequan Hardy had a four-touchdown, three-interception effort in the PIAA Class 5A football championship that drew comparisons to the former Aliquippa great. A day later, Revis’...

Ayden Owens enjoyed his freshman year on the West Coast, the warm weather and the Los Angeles lifestyle. But to reach his decathlon dreams, the former North Allegheny track star decided he needed a change. Owens announced Monday that he’ll transfer from Southern Cal to Michigan, leaving the Pac-12 for...

North Allegheny’s Jasmine Timmerson hasn’t started high school but already has a Division 1 basketball offer. The freshman-to-be announced an offer this week from Duquesne coach Dan Burt. The Dukes recruit Western Pennsylvania thoroughly and has five current players with WPIAL roots, but rarely does an incoming ninth grader receive...

Trinity’s Riley DeRubbo, who missed most of her junior basketball season after knee surgery, has added another Division 1 offer. DeRubbo announced a Fordham offer earlier in June and added St. Francis, Pa. this week. Her AAU program, the Western Pa. Bruins, announced her latest offer. The 5-foot-9 guard will...

Defending PIAA champion Southern Columbia was ranked Sunday as the No. 1 small school football team in the country by the website High School Football America. The District 4 power has won the state’s Class 2A title three of the past four years and owns nine PIAA titles overall. The...

WPIAL football teams Penn Hills and Pine-Richland were recognized by High School Football American in its national preseason rankings. Neither school cracked the Top 125 released Friday, but both were included in a list of 100 honorable mention selections. Three Pennsylvania teams were ranked. St. Joseph’s Prep was fourth overall,...

MJ Devonshire might be too humble to rank himself among the high school greats from Aliquippa, but his accomplishments speak for themselves. As a senior, he guided the Quips to a state football title, led his basketball team to the WPIAL playoffs and won two gold medals at the PIAA...

8.6.18 The WPIAL receives a wave of paperwork from athletes hurrying to beat an Aug. 6 deadline for a new PIAA rule that makes transfers automatically ineligible for the postseason. 9.6.18 Connellsville defeats Penn Hills, 6-1, in a boys soccer game marred by allegations of racial slurs. The accusations against...

For the third time in three years, the Mars girls basketball team has a Division 1 recruit. Bella Pelaia, a 6-foot forward and rising senior, announced her commitment to Mount St. Mary’s on Friday. She follows former teammates Tai Johnson (Bucknell) and Lauren Wasylson (Xavier) as D1 recruits. Johnson was...

As the Trib’s player of the year in 2014, Blackhawk’s Brendan McKay was asked to predict where he saw himself in five years. “Hopefully playing baseball somewhere,” he answered. “In the minor leagues, probably. Maybe even close to the major leagues.” Accuracy always was a strength for the talented left-hander....

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 HSSN Media Day at Kennywood Park. When A.J. Beatty arrived at Central Catholic last summer, defensive coordinator Dave Fleming saw...

North Allegheny grad Ayden Owens, who earned Pac-12 Freshman of the Year track honors this spring, announced Wednesday that he’s transferring from Southern Cal. Owens, who revealed his decision on Facebook, didn’t say where he would transfer. “I want to thank the University of Southern California, USC track and field,...

The Ivy League added a top WPIAL lineman for the second time in two days when North Allegheny’s Jake Lugg committed Wednesday to Harvard. The 6-foot-3, 255-pound rising senior had more than a dozen Division 1 offers, many from Ivy, Patriot and Mid-American schools. He announced a Harvard offer May...

A sign in Joe Maize’s game room reminds visitors that “Baseball Lives Here,” an item he picked up while visiting Cooperstown, N.Y. “I used to have it over our entrance way when you walked into our house, and my wife after about five years finally said that needs to go...

Two WPIAL basketball recruits received spots close together in updated ESPN 100 rankings for the 2020 class. Butler’s Ethan Morton was ranked No. 55 overall and Moon’s Donovan Johnson was No. 61 in rankings revealed Monday. Morton, a 6-foot-4 guard, committed to Purdue in May. Johnson, a 6-7 forward, remains...

The WPIAL baseball playoffs were as unpredictable as ever this season with only one top-seeded team winning a title. That was California in Class A. But that led to some unexpected champions and some long-awaited celebrations. Two first-year coaches claimed WPIAL titles, while Shaler and Seton LaSalle each were finally...