Chris Harlan stories, Page 97
PIAA won’t force Chartiers Valley, North Catholic girls into higher classifications
The Chartiers Valley and North Catholic girls basketball teams won’t be forced into a higher classification next season, the PIAA told the schools Monday. The WPIAL teams were initially targeted for promotion under the PIAA competitive-balance rule but both won their appeals, said Chartiers Valley athletic director Mike Gavlik and...
North Allegheny’s Nathan Hoke adds 2 more Division I football offersVideo
North Allegheny junior Nathan Hoke, the son of a former Steelers defensive lineman, added two more football teams to his growing list of Division I offers. Akron and the Air Force Academy both extended offers this week to Hoke, a 6-foot-3, 225-pound linebacker who’s seen his recruiting status heat up...
7 schools file PIAA appeal contesting competitive-balance rule promotion
Seven schools statewide, including three from the WPIAL, filed appeals this week with the PIAA, all hoping their basketball teams can avoid being promoted by the competitive-balance rule. The deadline to file was noon Friday. The Lincoln Park boys, Chartiers Valley girls and North Catholic girls were among 15 schools...
Baldwin fires girls coach Kyle DeGregorio after defeating state’s top-ranked basketball team
Exactly two months after Baldwin’s girls basketball team upset the No. 1-ranked team in the state, coach Kyle DeGregorio lost his job. When the Baldwin school board voted Wednesday night to hire Jeff Ackermann as the boys basketball coach, it also opened DeGregorio’s girls coaching job to applicants. The Highlanders...
Justin Walther resigns at Serra Catholic, seeks big-school basketball job
If you’re a big-school athletic director, Justin Walther would like to talk. The former Central Catholic star and all-time leading scorer at Pitt-Johnstown wants a job coaching WPIAL boys basketball in the largest classifications, so he resigned at Serra Catholic after four seasons with the Class 2A school. Serra announced...
Basketball coach Bill Sacco retires after 18 seasons at Cornell
Bill Sacco had already retired from teaching and coaching when he noticed Cornell was hiring a boys basketball coach and decided to apply. On interview day, the candidates lined up. “I sat there that whole time waiting for guys to go in and explain what they were going to do...
WPIAL board member, retired school administrator Enrico Antonini dies
Enrico “Rego” Antonini, a member of the WPIAL board of directors and a retired Beaver County school administrator, died Tuesday. He was 81. A former principal at New Brighton and superintendent at Western Beaver, Antonini served on the WPIAL board for nearly two decades. He joined the board from 1990-2004...
Baldwin hires 5-time WPIAL champion Jeff Ackermann as boys basketball coach
Until this week, Jeff Ackermann coached basketball at Pine-Richland, lived in South Fayette and taught at Chartiers Valley, a commute that saw him and his family crisscross the county. With an 8-year-old son, a daughter who’s 6 and another son who’s 2½, that arrangement couldn’t last forever. “The drive kind...
PIAA forcing 3 WPIAL basketball teams into higher classification, pending appeal
Three WPIAL basketball teams will be forced to play in a higher classification next season unless those schools can win a PIAA appeal. The Chartiers Valley girls, North Catholic girls and Lincoln Park boys are among 15 teams statewide that the PIAA marked for promotion under its competitive-balance rule. It...
Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame postpones induction banquet to 2021
The Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame induction banquet will be postponed until next year, organizers announced Monday, in response to the covid-19 outbreak. The banquet was rescheduled for May 16, 2021. The 45th induction class includes Sam Bechtel (sports journalism), Ron Brown (basketball), Barry Cox (football), Arthur Jason DeLuigi...
Could coach Jeff Ackermann turn around another basketball program in Baldwin?
Baldwin’s boys basketball team hasn’t won a WPIAL playoff game since 2003. The Highlanders reached the postseason only four times in the 17 years since, with four first-round losses. Clearly, there’s room to improve. This past winter they went winless in the section, a year after finishing 1-9. But Baldwin...
Quaker Valley’s Corinne Washington commits to Boston University
There’s a third Division I basketball player in the Washington household. Quaker Valley’s Corinne Washington, one of the WPIAL’s top juniors, committed Sunday to Boston University over offers from Duquesne, Robert Morris and others. Her brother, Coletrane, was a sophomore this winter at Drexel and her father Jesse played basketball...
Woodland Hills’ Peyton Pinkney commits to Eastern Michigan after virtual tourVideo
Woodland Hills junior Peyton Pinkney took a tour of Eastern Michigan’s campus last week and never left her home. That’s the new normal in a pandemic. EMU women’s basketball coach Fred Castro and his staff provided a virtual tour of the Ypsilanti, Mich., campus for Pinkney to watch online. She...
Central Catholic football coaches deliver WPIAL championship rings door to doorVideo
What’s better than one WPIAL ring ceremony? How about 23? The covid-19 outbreak kept Central Catholic’s football coaches from handing out championship rings at school like they’d planned, so they decided to hand-deliver the rings to the 23 seniors on the roster that won the WPIAL Class 6A title. The...
Butler’s Ethan Morton named Player of the Year in Class 6A all-state voting
Butler’s Ethan Morton’s quest for a PIAA basketball title was cut short, but the senior earned statewide recognition Saturday as the state’s Class 6A Player of the Year in a vote of Pennsylvania sports writers. The Purdue recruit was the first WPIAL athlete to win the award in the PIAA’s...
Hotly recruited Peters Township safety Donovan McMillon names Top 10 listVideo
Peters Township junior Donovan McMillon, who’s quickly become the WPIAL’s hottest football recruit, announced a top 10 list Friday that included Penn State but not Pitt or West Virginia. The Nittany Lions were joined on the list by Arizona State, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Michigan, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas A&M and Virginia...
Bethel Park’s Liv Westphal commits to Duquesne
Three years ago, Bethel Park’s Liv Westphal and her family took an unofficial recruiting visit to Duquesne before her freshman year of high school. The Dukes were the first women’s basketball team to show interest in the future Black Hawks star. “We were in coach Dan Burt’s office for like...
Mars’ Michael Carmody, Laurel Highlands’ Rodney Gallagher earn all-state honors in Class 5A boys basketball
Mars’ Michael Carmody and Laurel Highlands’ Rodney Gallagher, whose teams clashed in the WPIAL boys basketball finals, were named first-team all-state Friday. They were the only WPIAL players selected to the Class 5A team in a vote of Pennsylvania sports writers. For Carmody, a Notre Dame football recruit, it was...
‘Size doesn’t matter’ as South Fayette’s Charley Rossi adds first Division I offerVideo
Charley Rossi took a break from helping his dad clean out the garage Monday to return a phone call to a college football coach. He knew how the conversation would go. How’s quarantine going? Is everybody in his family healthy? How’s school? What are his workouts like nowadays? All standard...
WPIAL lands 2 players on Class 4A boys basketball all-state team
Highlands’ Johnny Crise and Central Valley’s Isiah Warfield will play different sports in college, but right now they’re both all-state basketball players. The two WPIAL stars were selected all-state in Class 4A on Thursday in a vote of Pennsylvania sports writers. Warfield was named to the second team and Crise...
North Catholic’s DeGregorios share all-state honors in Class 3A boys basketball
Two months after celebrating a WPIAL basketball title, North Catholic’s Dave and Isaac DeGregorio are sharing some statewide recognition. Isaac DeGregorio, a senior guard, earned second-team all-state honors in Class 3A and his father Dave DeGregorio was named as the classification’s top coach Wednesday in a vote of Pennsylvania sports...
WPIAL approves new basketball sections; won’t reveal them yet
Basketball sections for next season are almost ready, but WPIAL players, coaches and fans must wait a little longer to see them. The WPIAL board approved updated section alignments at its April meeting, said associate executive director Amy Scheuneman, but those included multiple contingencies in case the PIAA competitive-balance rule...
All-state boys basketball: OLSH’s DiMichele, Spadafora, Rodriguez lead Class 2A team
OLSH junior Dante Spadafora and sophomore Jake DiMichele earned first-team all-state honors Tuesday, and the Chargers’ Mike Rodriguez was named the state’s top coach in Class 2A. In all, four WPIAL players were selected in a vote of Pennsylvania sports writers. Sto-Rox’s Malik Smith and California’s Malik Ramsey earned second-team...
PIAA shouldn’t enforce competitive-balance rule, Lincoln Park basketball coach says
If the PIAA competitive-balance rule forces the Lincoln Park boys basketball team into a higher classification next season, coach Mike Bariski thinks that’s unfair. “We’re not averse to going up,” he said. “I just totally disagree with the process.” Two months ago, Bariski would have accepted the promotion without objection....
All-state boys basketball: Cornell’s Kaden DiVito named Player of the Year in Class A
Cornell’s Kaden DiVito, who saw his senior season cut short two wins away from the PIAA finals, earned statewide recognition Monday as the Class A boys basketball player of the year. A 5-foot-11 guard committed to Washington & Jefferson, DiVito averaged 20.8 points for the WPIAL runner-up. In the state...
