Doug Gulasy stories, Page 7

Pitt’s Micky Phillippi felt the butterflies all too briefly as he walked out to wrestle the first NCAA tournament match of his career. Then it was time to get down to business. Phillippi, a Derry graduate, was one of three Pitt wrestlers to win their first-round bouts at the NCAA...

More than 300 wrestlers took the mats Thursday afternoon at PPG Paints Arena for the preliminary and first rounds of the NCAA wrestling championships. Penn State, which won seven of the past eight championships, held the team lead after the end of the first session with 21 points, ahead of...

Greg Bulsak and Nick Kiussis spent the minutes leading up to 3 p.m. March 12 repeatedly refreshing the NCAA wrestling website on their phones. Sammy Krivus kept himself busy by lifting weights. Ultimately, all three wrestlers received the news they were hoping for the same way: from somebody else. Bulsak,...

Bob Bubb became an NCAA All-American in 1959, wrestling in the University of Iowa’s gymnasium. Nearly 60 years later, Nico Megaludis won a national title in “The World’s Most Famous Arena,” New York’s Madison Square Garden, with a finals attendance of 19,270 — more than the crowd for the entire...

Brad Walker knows about rebuilding. Now he will just be building. The former Highlands boys soccer coach was hired last week for the same job at Leechburg, which is fielding a boys soccer team for the first time. The Blue Devils formed a cooperative agreement with Apollo-Ridge and will play...

Natalie Myers helped IUP win its second consecutive regional women’s basketball title. The Burrell graduate, a redshirt junior in her first season with the Crimson Hawks, scored six points and pulled down four rebounds in IUP’s 68-60 win over California (Pa.) in the finals of the NCAA Division II Atlantic...

Monday Hockey: Burrell will attempt to win the first PIHL title in school history as the No. 1 Bucs (21-1) face Ringgold (18-4) in the Division II Penguins Cup championship game at 6 p.m. at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. The teams played a pair of tight games during the regular...

Two weeks after the NFL Combine wrapped up in Indianapolis, the Pittsburgh Indoor Sports Arena will host a similar event for local college football players pursuing a professional career. Cal (Pa.)’s Pro Football Combine, sanctioned by the NFL, is 9 a.m. Monday at PISA in Cheswick. About 60 players from...

Nearly 350 of the nation’s best college wrestlers will converge on Pittsburgh this week for the NCAA Division I championships, with the city hosting the event for the first time since 1957. From Thursday to Saturday, wrestlers will compete for the most prestigious honors. Eighty will become All-Americans. Ten will...

Terence Parham never played in the PIAA basketball playoffs during his standout career at Shady Side Academy, his lone chance getting sunk during his 1993-94 senior season when the Indians bowed out of the postseason after Farrell beat them on a buzzer-beater. To make matters worse, Shady Side Academy won...

PIAA basketball playoffs Saturday’s game Class 3A Quarterfinals Deer Lakes (18-7) vs. Sharon (23-4) 1 p.m. at Slippery Rock Winner plays: Lincoln Park (24-4) or Richland (22-6) on Tuesday in the semifinals. Coaches: Terence Parham, Deer Lakes; Zach Sarver, Sharon How they got here: Deer Lakes: beat District 6 third-place...

The fourth quarter began poorly for Jared Colton in Deer Lakes’ PIAA Class 3A playoff game Wednesday against Forest Hills. Two quick turnovers, followed by two out-of-rhythm missed shots, spurred a quick meeting between the Lancers’ senior guard and coach Terence Parham. Parham delivered a short message: Keep shooting. And...

Maggie Nicholas jokes that her win-loss record as Kiski Area’s softball coach doesn’t look impressive on paper. But in a “What have you done for me lately?” world, the Cavaliers’ recent track record jumps off the page. Kiski Area, a program that struggled mightily just a few years ago, hit...

Kiski Area’s baseball players got a bit of a history lesson in one of their winter workouts with first-year coach Aaron Albert. A former Knoch baseball player, Albert pointed out a banner for the Cavaliers’ 2002 section title, which they won after beating Albert’s team by one game in the...

Three Penn State wrestlers will go into the upcoming NCAA championships at PPG Paints Arena as the top seeds in their weight classes. The NCAA released the tournament pairings Wednesday, with three-time defending national champion Penn State garnering seven top-three seeds. Nittany Lions senior Jason Nolf, a Kittanning graduate and...

The playoffs tend to present adverse situations, and finding the right response can prove to be the difference in the outcome. So it was for Deer Lakes in Saturday’s PIAA Class 3A boys basketball tournament opener. The Lancers’ first state playoff appearance since 1985 hung in the balance late after...

Wrestler of the week: Gerrit Nijenhuis, jr., Canon-McMillan A controversial officiating decision cost Nijenhuis a spot in the finals at the 2018 PIAA Class AAA tournament. This time around, he wouldn’t be denied. Nijenhuis won his first career state wrestling championship when he beat Susquehanna’s Edmond Ruth, 8-3, in the...

Team of the week: Franklin Regional The Panthers were on center stage Saturday night in the PIAA Class AAA championship finals at Giant Center in Hershey, as three of Franklin Regional’s four state qualifiers advanced to the championship bouts in their respective weight classes. Sophomore Carter Dibert became the seventh...

PIAA basketball playoffs Wednesday’s game Class 3A Second round Deer Lakes (17-7) vs. Forest Hills (17-9) 7:30 p.m. at Armstrong High School Winner plays: Sharon (22-4) or Beaver Falls (11-14) on Saturday in the quarterfinals. Coaches: Terence Parham, Deer Lakes; Dom Vescovi, Forest Hills Players to watch: Brad Perrotte, Deer...

Organizers for the Cager Classic All-Star basketball game released the rosters for the 23rd annual event, which will take place March 22-23 at Highlands High School. The event features senior players from the Alle-Kiski Valley and surrounding schools. For the first time, the game will include players from Butler and...

Fresh off winning their first PIAA championships over the weekend, Hopewell’s Jacob Ealy and Kiski Area’s Darren Miller were picked to represent the PA All-Star team at the upcoming Pittsburgh Wrestling Classic. Ealy became the first individual state wrestling champion when he won the 138-pound title at the PIAA Class...

Jordan Geist is an All-American again. The Knoch graduate, a sophomore at Arizona, earned first team All-American honors with a fifth-place finish in the shot put at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships on Friday in Birmingham, Ala. His throw went 66 feet, 6.5 inches. Geist was also named...

The Alle-Kiski Valley will be well-represented at the Roundball Classic. The annual all-star basketball games, featuring seven games over two days April 12-13 at Geneva, will include more than 200 senior players, including 13 from the A-K Valley. On April 12, there will be three boys games: East vs. West...