Michael Love stories, Page 134

It was a successful dual-meet season for the Riverview track and field teams. The Raiders boys and girls captured section championships with undefeated records. It was the boys team’s second section crown in a row, and the girls won a section title for the first time. Both teams fell short...

The Quaker Valley baseball team still is alive for a spot in the WPIAL 4A playoffs, but it needs to defeat Ambridge on Wednesday afternoon to remain in the conversation. The Quakers’ Section 2-4A finale against the Bridgers is at 4:15 at Esmark Field. QV is 10-6 overall and 5-6...

The WPIAL team tennis championship matchups feature Fox Chapel against Shady Side Academy for the Class AAA title and Quaker Valley taking on Indiana for the Class AA crown. Both matches are Wednesday at the Oxford Athletic Club in Wexford. The Class AA match begins at 11:30 a.m., and the...

Hampton senior Anastasia Russ is a member of the Pitt women’s volleyball recruiting class that received a national ranking for the first time in program history. The rankings, assembled by PrepVolleyball, were released Tuesday, and the seven-member class is No. 19 in the nation. A panel of college coaches representing...

The Quaker Valley boys tennis team will face South Park on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. at Mt. Lebanon in the semifinals of the WPIAL Class AA tournament. The Quakers, the Section 2-AA champions, defeated Knoch 5-0 in the first round and Mt. Pleasant 5-0 in the quarterfinals. The other semifinal...

Apollo-Ridge seniors Mollie Charlton and Sidney Sheaffer were celebrated before Monday’s Section 2-2A softball game against Riverview. They then were able to help their teammates celebrate a victory. Sheaffer hit a home run and drove in three runs, and Charlton limited the Riverview offense to one hit in a 10-0...

Playoffs wasn’t a term that had been used in connection with Springdale softball for some time. The last time the Dynamos reached the WPIAL postseason was 2000. That year, Springdale defeated Brentwood in eight innings in the first round before falling to Chartiers-Houston, 1-0, in the quarterfinals. But this year’s...

The WPIAL boys volleyball playoff fields will be finalized this week as Thursday marks the final date of section play in both Class AAA and AA. The WPIAL playoff committee will meet next Monday, May 13, to set up the brackets, and the first round is expected to begin as...

Antonio Cardona Rodriguez left with the Pittsburgh Half Marathon championship last year. He competed and trained over the past 12 months with the opportunity to return and defend his title in the back of his mind. On Sunday morning, the 22-year-old from Coamo, Puerto Rico, again found himself on the...

Kenyan Boniface Kongin, competing in his second Pittsburgh Marathon, captured the men’s 26.2-mile race in 2 hours, 10 minutes and 34 seconds. The 29-year-old crossed the finish line more than three minutes better than his nearest challenger. “I didn’t finish last year. It was a bad day,” Kongin said. “So...

Kenyan Boniface Kongin, competing in his second Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon, captured the men’s full 26.2-mile race in a time of 2 hours, 10 minutes and 34 seconds. The 29-year-old hit the tape at the finish line more than three minutes better than his nearest challenger. 26.2 Miles in...

Through Play Ball Pittsburgh!, a partnership between the Tull Family Foundation, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Pitch In For Baseball & Softball, 16 organizations in a four-county area in the Pittsburgh Region recently received a donation of new baseball and softball equipment. Included in that group were the Allegheny Valley Little...

It was quite the interesting final week of the Section 2-5A schedule for the Gateway softball team. The Gators, battling for one of the final WPIAL playoff spots from the section, did their part with convincing wins over Penn Hills and Oakland Catholic. They also watched how things progressed with...

The Plum girls lacrosse team has qualified for the WPIAL Class AA playoffs for the second year in a row. Now, the Mustangs hope to make history with their first postseason win. Coach Kayla Platt said her team impressed her with the way it battled through the regular season to...

Round one goes to the Raiders. The Riverview and Apollo-Ridge softball teams met Thursday at Riverside Park in Oakmont for the first of two Section 2-2A matchups between the teams in the span of four days. With the rematch looming Monday, the Raiders scored a run in the bottom of...

The Sewickley Academy boys tennis team’s 15-year WPIAL-title streak came to an end Thursday when it lost to Upper St. Clair in the first round of the Class AAA playoffs. In a battle of the Panthers, USC scored a 3-2 victory to advance to the quarterfinals and a meeting with...

Jack Henderson wanted to finish the game. The pitch-count rules, however, didn’t permit him to do so. But the Bucs junior fashioned a gem against Deer Lakes on Wednesday before he exited the game with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. Henderson limited a potent Lancers lineup to...

Deer Lakes senior Josh Yourish and Freeport junior Sidney Shemanski are two of the top middle distance runners in the state. Success from both previous seasons and this spring have put targets on their backs as ones to beat with the WPIAL championships two weeks from today. Both, however, are...

It was guaranteed that a Quaker Valley team would win the WPIAL Class AA doubles tennis championship Tuesday at the Oxford Athletic Club in Wexford. Quaker Valley’s John Watters and Zach Albert topped teammates Potter Oliver and Will Siriani 6-3, 6-2 to claim the championship. Both teams advance to the...

Sixteen track and field teams remain alive for WPIAL titles after Tuesday’s semifinal meets determined the finalists for the championships Monday at Peters Township. All four meets will begin at 4 p.m. The four defending champions — the North Allegheny and Riverside boys and the Butler and Shenango girls —...

The Leechburg softball team had a quick turnaround after suffering its first loss of the season, a nonsection setback to Apollo-Ridge on Monday. The Blue Devils came back Tuesday and took advantage of the opportunity to get back on track with a 12-2 victory over Springdale in a Section 3-A...

It will be an all-Quaker Valley final Tuesday afternoon for the WPIAL Class AA boys doubles tennis championship. Zach Albert and John Watters will face Potter Oliver and Will Sirianni at 2 at the Oxford Athletic Club in Wexford. Both squads captured three victories Monday. Albert and Watters scored a...

Belle Vernon’s Hunter Martin captured four individual titles, and the Leopards won the boys team title Monday at the Scott Frederick Mid Mon Classic at Charleroi High School. Martin placed first in the 110-meter hurdles (15.12 seconds), the 300 hurdles (42.46), the long jump (20 feet, 7.5 inches) and the...

Less than two weeks remain in the WPIAL boys volleyball regular season, and some teams are jockeying for playoff positioning, while others continue to battle to stay alive in the playoff chase. The Western Pennsylvania Volleyball Coaches Association, with votes from all 39 head coaches, released its latest Class AAA...

The last time the Apollo-Ridge boys track and field team qualified for the WPIAL semifinals was in 2014 when the Tre Tipton-led Vikings won the section title and punched their ticket to the postseason. “We have a lot of guys who have become better throughout their career and throughout the...