Chris Harlan stories, Page 39

Avonworth and Neshannock repeated as WPIAL softball champions this week, but now they’ll try to win back-to-back state titles as well. The state playoffs start Monday. WPIAL 3A champion Avonworth opens the PIAA tournament with a first-round game against Fort LeBoeuf at North Allegheny. Neshannock, the 2A champion, will host...

The six WPIAL baseball champions will start the state tournament close to home, but nobody will be closer than Riverside. The Class 3A champion Panthers have a home game Monday in the first round of the PIAA playoffs. Riverside hosts Tyrone at 3 p.m. All first-round games are Monday. WPIAL...

Mt. Lebanon has a knack for no-hitters in WPIAL championship games. Sophomore left-hander David Shields had heard tales about the team’s last one, thrown in 2002 by Chris Koutsavlis, who nowadays runs the Blue Devils’ offseason pitching program. Twenty-one years later, exactly to the date, Shields matched the feat. The...

Miguel Hugas sparked a championship celebration in Shaler Township, but the star senior was sure he’d hear from some happy baseball fans in Venezuela too. Hugas struck out eight in a dominant complete game, and top-seeded Shaler provided him more than enough run support to defeat No. 2 Bethel Park,...

McKeesport’s Jahmil Perryman scored twice, and Team Pennsylvania rallied with a late touchdown to win the Big 33 Football Classic, 31-27, over the Maryland all-stars Sunday in Harrisburg. The winning touchdown was a 31-yard pass from Upper Dublin quarterback Colin O’Sullivan to Dallastown receiver Kenny Johnson with 1:15 left. Johnson...

Amberson Bauer prepares for track meets with some visualization, running each stage of a race through his head with mental reps. For a year, he often has thought about Seth Grove Stadium. “Just lying in bed before I go to sleep, I have a lot of time to me and...

The PIAA had a special guest award Brownsville senior Jolena Quarzo her final state championship gold medal — her older sister Gionna. The sisters combined to win the 3,200-meter title five times in a row, with the younger sister finishing off their dominant run Saturday with a nine-second win in...

SHIPPENSBURG — At this time last year, Logan St. John Kletter was suffering from a nerve condition in her foot and wondering when she’d run competitively again. She missed WPIALs and states. “I didn’t know if I could ever get back to this,” the Mt. Lebanon junior said Saturday while...

SHIPPENSBURG — An injury cut short New Castle sprinter Kaevon Gardner’s debut at the state track championships Friday, forcing one of the top athletes in the 100-meter dash to make an early exit. Gardner entered the meet with the second-fastest time in Class 3A, but the sophomore injured a hip...

SHIPPENSBURG — After her first couple of discus throws produced a foul and a 104-footer, Reese Skiba’s state championship was off to a lackluster start. She could’ve panicked, but she didn’t. “They give us three throws for a reason,” said Skiba, a Freeport senior. “I always tell myself, ‘It’s not...

SHIPPENSBURG — Brownsville’s Jolena Quarzo decided to skip more races than usual in her senior year, but this wasn’t a case of senioritis. She was just focused on states. “I said, ‘I don’t want to do too much, get myself tired, burnt out or even get hurt,’” she said. “So...

It takes a team effort to win a WPIAL team track title, but that’s not necessarily true for winning a state title. A school with one superstar athlete can sometimes take home a PIAA team trophy. So some WPIAL coaches wish the state might someday adopt the WPIAL team tournament...

Nobody who saw Dani Prunzik sprint across the finish line at the WPIAL track championships could’ve guessed the Upper St. Clair senior has battled a painful foot injury for almost a year. Once she removed her shoes, only the tape on her right ankle gave it away. “It has been...

Longtime Hampton athletic director Bill Cardone won’t be making as many trips to Mars or Moon, but soon he’ll have plenty of free time to travel the world. Cardone, 67, is retiring this summer after nearly three decades at his alma mater, where he graduated in 1973 as a three-sport...

Plum relief pitcher Colin Watson isn’t so worried about how things start but rather how they finish. The Mustangs maybe had a rough beginning to this season, but they’re now headed to the WPIAL semifinals after their top reliever pitched three scoreless innings Monday night. Watson entered with a one-run...

Peters Township defensive back Brendan McCullough made a late-game interception Sunday that secured a 24-16 victory for his West team in the PSFCA East-West Big School Game in Harrisburg. The East had fourth-and-goal with 1:19 left when McCullough picked off a pass just short of the goal line. The East-West...

North Allegheny senior Alaina Fantaski was a nationally ranked snowboarder in junior high, who also tried fencing and more traditional activities like basketball. “I’ve done every sport,” said Fantaski, but she wanted a new challenge after putting away her snowboard freshman year. “I knew I had to do something and...

Canon-McMillan’s Rose Kuchera was relaxing in the team’s tent when a teammate asked if she was running the 100-meter hurdles. As defending champ, of course she was. The junior’s hectic schedule for the WPIAL track and field championships included the hurdles, the long jump, the triple jump and the 400-meter...

The WPIAL might be known best for its football hall of famers, but don’t overlook the league’s track and field pedigree. Consider, in the past week, Knoch graduate Jordan Geist won his fourth Pac-12 shot put title at Arizona, and North Allegheny grad Ayden Owens-Delerme at Arkansas won an SEC...

Anyone who saw Daemar Kelly finish an alley-oop this winter knows the Penn Hills senior can almost fly. In a gym, on a wood floor, with a basketball in his hands, few around the WPIAL jump higher than him. Yet lately he’s raised the bar — literally. Kelly joined the...

The pressure of shooting a one-and-one is likely to vanish from high school basketball. The national organization that writes the rulebook used by the PIAA has changed the way fouls are counted and the number of bonus shots a player receives. Most notably, the National Federation of State High School...

Former Our Lady of the Sacred Heart basketball star Jake DiMichele, who graduated a year ago as one of WPIAL’s all-time leading scorers, committed Friday to Duquesne. He announced his decision on Twitter. OLSH was a record-setting program when the 6-foot-3 guard was on the court. DiMichele averaged 31.9 points...

Central Catholic linebacker Cole Sullivan committed Friday to Michigan, choosing the Wolverines over finalists Duke, Notre Dame, Stanford and Wisconsin. He announced his decision on Twitter. The 6-foot-3, 200-pound junior from North Huntingdon received more than two dozen Division I offers. Rivals.com rated him as a three-star prospect and 17th...

Class 6A Favorite: Pine-Richland tied North Allegheny and Seneca Valley atop the Section 1 standings (all with 8-4 records), but the Rams got the No. 1 seed by winning two out of three games over both rivals. Senior Jacob McGuire leads the Rams as a two-way player with a team-best...

Who’s No. 1? Pine-Richland, Shaler, Montour, Riverside, Serra Catholic and Union will start the WPIAL baseball playoffs as favorites after receiving No. 1 seeds Friday when the brackets were revealed on TribLive HSSN. The next couple of weeks will decide if those six teams finish on top. The WPIAL playoffs...