Michael Love stories, Page 40

The Freeport girls soccer team scored a goal in each half of its Section 2-2A matchup Wednesday evening at rival Burrell. The second tally, a shot from sophomore Peyton Los from 25 yards out with 26 minutes left in the second half, proved to be the game winner. Burrell cut...

Player of the week Aaran Randolph Highlands, Sr., QB/DB The Golden Rams moved to 2-0 on the young season with a 33-20 victory at Blackhawk last Friday. Highlands senior dual-threat quarterback Aaran Randolph collected 265 yards and three touchdowns on 12 carries. A 10-yard scoring run broke a 13-13 tie...

Mark Adams served as an assistant at Valley under former coach Muzzy Colosimo in 2018 and 2019, and he was able to get a taste of the “Battle of the Bypass” rivalry between the Vikings and Burrell. “The schools are just three miles apart, and everybody knows everybody,” said Adams,...

Abbie Johns still feels the excitement and also the relief. A couple of weeks after making a basketball verbal commitment to Division II Shippensburg of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, the Kiski Area senior two-sport standout continues to carry the momentum of her decision in the early stages of her...

Plum, North Allegheny and Mt. Lebanon earned doubleheader sweeps during the opening Sunday of varsity action in the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Softball League. Plum outscored North Hills, 32-4, in a dominant opening performance. North Allegheny, the WPISL runner-up to Shaler last year, won two from Hempfield, 14-3 and 7-5, while...

The Western Pennsylvania Youth Football League is well into its 2023 season as teams in all four classifications completed Week 3 games Sunday. This fall marks the 10th anniversary of the WPYFL, the largest youth football league in Pennsylvania with 44 member organizations in 43 school districts covering seven counties....

The Burrell girls soccer team kicked off its season Aug. 26 with a 2-1 victory over District 10 Class 5A McDowell at the South Park tournament. One day later, the Bucs toppled defending District 10 Class 2A champion Fort Le Boeuf, 3-2, for a 2-0 start and a great deal...

The Gateway boys soccer team, and specifically the senior class, can make history this year. No other Gators class has made the WPIAL playoffs all four of its seasons. Gateway qualified for the playoffs from 1986-88, but the 1989 seniors were denied a fourth consecutive trip. The Gators players are...

The Gateway girls volleyball team was happy to finally kick off its regular-season competition schedule Tuesday (Sept. 5) against Woodland Hills after several weeks of workouts in the gym leading to the past three weeks of official season practices. The Gators didn’t have a scrimmage, and second-year coach Nicole Riley...

Aaran Randolph tied a WPIAL record Friday. The Highlands senior dual-threat quarterback made his mark in the fourth quarter at Blackhawk to help secure the Golden Rams’ 33-20 victory and a 2-0 record. With his team leading 20-13 in the final quarter and the offense backed up to the shadow...

For the second time in three years, the Riverview boys soccer team is youthful with no seniors on the roster. But coach Mickey Namey said that the mix of experience and talent new to the varsity program is making strides in the early part of the season. “I am really...

The Plum boys soccer team had a most interesting, and exhausting, opening to its season Aug. 26. Kiski Area pulled out of the Mustangs’ kickoff tournament which also featured West Allegheny and Upper St. Clair. It created a void that the coaches of Plum, West A and USC worked to...

Last year’s matchup between Burrell and Deer Lakes went to overtime before the Bucs pulled out a six-point victory. An extra session wasn’t needed Friday in the latest edition of the series between the area rivals. Deer Lakes scored three times in the first half, added two TDs in the...

Player of the week Luke Bombalski Highlands, Sr., RB/LB After missing the final four games last season, Bombalski wanted to make a statement at Ambridge last Friday that he was back and healthy. He got Highlands’ scoring started with a 2-yard run in the first quarter and added a pair...

The Burrell football team has won the last four games in the series with Deer Lakes, but three of the four went down to the wire. In last year’s nonconference matchup, then-junior Tristan Brothers intercepted a pass in overtime, which set up the winning score in the Bucs’ 27-21 victory....

Last year’s Pack the Park girls volleyball event between Norwin and Kiski Area didn’t make it to the Ellen Toy Grass Court at Vandergrift’s Kennedy Park as rain chased officials, fans and both teams inside to Kiski Area High School. But no such change of plans was necessary Tuesday evening....

Every year around this time, Tom Phillips sees the landscape of WPIAL girls volleyball, both overall and in his classification, and knows his team is the hunted. The Freeport coach, now in his 23rd year, knows it especially is the case in 2023 as a host of teams hope to...

The Gateway varsity girls soccer team fields one of the smaller rosters in recent memory with just 20 active players for the 2023 season. That leaves the program without a JV team. But Caleb Kyper, who enters his second season at the helm of the Gators, said the returning and...

Marnie Giunta is considered one of the top coaches in the history of athletics in the state of Delaware. The 1989 Gateway graduate and longtime cross country and indoor and outdoor track and field coach at Padua Academy, an all-girls school in Wilmington, Del., recently was honored with that distinction....

Plum played the 800th game in program history Friday night, and the Mustangs celebrated with a win at rival Kiski Area. The Mustangs mixed the pass and the run, scoring a pair of TDs each way in the 28-18 victory. Junior Nick Odom doesn’t mind running against Kiski Area. In...

The Riverview girls soccer team is after a playoff three-peat. After the frustration of not having enough players to field a team in 2020, the Raiders have enjoyed a resurgence in the program. That growth has produced back-to-back WPIAL playoff berths in Class A. Junior midfielder/forward Cailey Trosch, one of...

The Plum girls soccer team enjoyed a strong four-year run through last season that included 72 victories in 83 games, four consecutive section championships, three WPIAL title-game appearances and three trips to the PIAA playoffs. Last year’s Mustangs reached the WPIAL Class 3A semifinals and the PIAA quarterfinals and were...

Karter Schrock missed almost the entire 2022 season with a left knee injury. The Apollo-Ridge senior got back to game action Friday, and his return against rival Leechburg was triumphant. Schrock carried the ball 28 times for 134 yards and touchdown runs of 2 and 4 yards in the second...

Springdale coach Marc Bentley can’t help but smile when thinking back to last fall and his team’s run to the WPIAL Class A championship game at Highmark Stadium and its trip to the PIAA quarterfinals. “It was such a great experience for the girls, especially knowing how hard they worked...

For a quarter of a century, the Plum Kick-Off Classic youth soccer tournament has hosted competitive matchups involving teams and organizations hoping for a successful start to their seasons. One of the region’s largest youth soccer events is back this weekend. The 26th annual tournament begins Friday and runs through...