Michael Love stories, Page 3

Out of the hundreds of boys golfers who took to courses in high school matches this fall, only 36 were able to play for a WPIAL Class 3A championship at Butler Country Club. Plum senior Dany Caruso and Mustangs junior Gavin Fink were two of them. And while they didn’t...

It will be a play the Plum football faithful will not soon forget. Mustangs senior Austin Kolanowski set up for a 24-yard field goal with the score tied with two seconds left. The kick was blocked, but Kolankowski followed the ball and picked it up at the 10. He ran...

Leechburg and Neshannock each picked up a win even before playing their regular-season finale Friday. The Blue Devils’ Week 5 Eastern Conference game with Springdale from Sept. 26, originally postponed because the Dynamos were without enough healthy players to play the game, was officially declared a forfeit victory for Leechburg...

Rebekah Hall was thrust further into the WPIAL spotlight after last week’s title-winning performance at the Tri-State Coaches Association meet at White Oak Park. The Hampton junior came back to White Oak on Thursday with a goal to add a WPIAL title to her 2025 cross country resume. Mission accomplished....

Player of the week Timmy Andrasy Leechburg, Sr., RB/LB Andrasy was at it again last Friday against Brentwood as the Blue Devils bounced back from a loss to No. 1 Clairton and clinched their fifth straight trip to the WPIAL playoffs. He powered his way through 39 carries as Leechburg...

Freeport earned a much-needed victory last Friday with a 49-19 triumph over East Allegheny on senior night at Freeport Area Athletic Stadium. The Yellowjackets had lost two in a row coming into the game, one in heartbreaking fashion and the other that was not as close against a Class 3A...

Carter French has designs on winning a WPIAL Class 2A cross country championship Thursday at White Oak Park. The Knoch junior, who placed fifth in last year’s Class 2A race, has raised his level this fall with several first-place finishes in meets and invitationals. Last week, he built up a...

The Burrell girls soccer team scored just one goal in its WPIAL Class 2A first-round game against Belle Vernon on Tuesday at Buccaneer Stadium. Junior Makiah Buchak found the back of the net with three minutes left in the first half. But that single tally was all the Bucs needed....

Rain on Sunday wiped out the planned semifinals and championship games of the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Softball League playoff tournament. Top seed Montour, No. 2 Bethel Park, No. 4 Hempfield and No. 3 North Allegheny all advanced and will now decide the title Saturday at McIntyre Field in Ross Township....

For the seventh year in a row, the Plum girls soccer team opened the WPIAL Class 3A playoffs with a Monday evening home game. The Mustangs were undefeated in the first six matchups, outscoring their opponents 33-3. The winning continued under the lights at Mustangs Stadium, this time against a...

For the first time in program history, the Burrell girls volleyball team will enter the WPIAL playoffs as a section champion. But head coach Kourtney Lehman said the Bucs players, who outlasted Southmoreland in four games on the road Thursday to clinch the outright Section 5-2A title, quickly turned the...

WPIAL soccer playoffs Girls Class A First round 13 Chartiers-Houston (8-5-2) at 5-Springdale (10-1-1) 6 p.m. Tuesday at Springdale High School Winner plays: Winner of 12-Riverview (8-5) vs. 5-Riverside (8-3-1) Saturday in quarterfinals (site/time TBD) Throw-ins: Springdale is seeking back-to-back WPIAL titles. The Dynamos captured the third WPIAL crown in...

The WPIAL field hockey committee on Monday released the brackets for the Class 3A, Class 2A and Class A playoffs. Pine-Richland (Class 3A), Peters Township (Class 2A) and Shady Side Academy (Class A) are the No. 1 seeds. Pine-Richland will host No. 4 Norwin in one Class 3A semifinal at...

Apollo-Ridge has gone from a one-win season in 2024 to qualifying for the WPIAL playoffs. The Vikings’ turnaround continued Friday when they clinched the postseason berth with a 45-34 Allegheny Conference victory over South Park, last year’s WPIAL Class 2A champion. Apollo-Ridge (6-3, 4-1) and Steel Valley (6-3, 4-1) are...

All of the invitationals and dual meets are over and the training runs are coming to an end as the Riverview and Plum cross country teams gear up for Thursday’s WPIAL championships at White Oak Park. The Raiders and Mustangs have competed at White Oak several times already this season...

The Plum hockey team went 13-6 last year in the PIHL Class A regular season and had high hopes for a run in the Penguins Cup playoffs. However, a 6-0 loss to North Hills in the first round put a halt to those plans. “That was very tough,” third-year Mustangs...

Plum trailed Kiski Area by two points late in the third quarter of Friday’s nonconference rivalry clash at Mustangs Stadium. But the Mustangs rallied, with both sides of the ball contributing. The Plum defense intercepted three passes from Cavaliers sophomore quarterback Landyn Artman. The Mustangs offense converted all three of...

The WPIAL girls volleyball teams have concluded section and nonsection matches, and invitational tournaments are in the past. The WPIAL postseason is here, and the playoff pairings committee on Friday released the brackets for all four classifications. North Allegheny (Class 4A), Oakland Catholic (Class 3A), Hopewell (Class 2A) and Frazier...

Player of the week Aven Shirley Kiski Area, Sr., WR/DB Shirley hauled in 10 catches for 184 yards and a touchdown in a 27-25 win over Armstrong. That reception total is the top mark in the Alle-Kiski Valley for 2025. His 32-yard reception from Artman in the second quarter put...

The Leechburg football team has not lost back-to-back games in the regular season since early in the covid-shortened 2020 season. The Blue Devils hope to keep that streak going Friday. Leechburg, which suffered a shutout loss to Class A juggernaut Clairton in Eastern Conference play last Friday, will look to...

The waiting ended at about 1:15 Wednesday afternoon when 15 Alle-Kiski Valley boys and girls soccer teams found out their playoff fates as the WPIAL revealed all eight brackets for the road to Highmark Stadium. The Fox Chapel girls lead the way with a No. 1 seed in Class 3A...

Here’s a look at the 2025 WPIAL girls soccer playoffs: Class 4A Favorite: Defending Class 4A champion Peters Township (13-2-2) rolled to a 10-0 record in Section 2, outscoring opponents 46-6. The Indians and Class 3A power Fox Chapel played to overtime Monday before the Foxes prevailed. Peters had won...

A Zoom conference call Tuesday morning brought together many of Terry Smith’s family and friends from his time growing up on Firethorn Drive in Monroeville’s Garden City neighborhood. Harvey Smith, Terry’s older brother by a few years and a coaching colleague at Gateway for nearly a decade, helped lead the...

The Pitt football team moved to 2-1 in ACC play and 4-2 overall with Saturday’s 34-31 win at Florida State. Leechburg graduate Braylan Lovelace posted a career high- tying 10 tackles in the victory. He was one of three Panthers defenders to have 10 or more stops against the Seminoles. The...

Not many people can say they appeared in Sports Illustrated. But Melanie Morgan Miller’s photos and her swimming accomplishments at the high school level were featured in the magazine’s “Faces in the Crowd” segment in 1988. But the Gateway graduate was not just any face in the crowd. She won...