District College category, Page 17
Gateway grad Emma Kennedy hits strong stretch for Slippery Rock softball
Gateway graduate Emma Kennedy hopes a recent hitting streak for the Slippery Rock softball team is the genesis of good things for the junior starting catcher. She collected at least one hit in each of four games — five total out of 11 at-bats — as The Rock went 3-1...
Westmoreland athletes excited for Mercyhurst’s move to Division I
Division II athletes one day, Division I the next. That’s the reality of what happened in a flash this week when Mercyhurst University in Erie announced it is leaving the NCAA Division II Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference and joining the Division I Northeast Conference, instantly bolstering the reputation of its...
Bullpen High: Hempfield baseball produces quartet of high-end college relievers
Phil Fox, Christian Zilli, Jake Kramer and Brandon Coughlin were the top four pitchers on the Hempfield baseball team that reached the WPIAL Class 6A championship game in 2021. With their right arms, the Spartans had speed and craftiness. With their big-game guts, they had fearless winners. These days, the...
Mercyhurst athletics moves up to Division I, will compete in Northeast Conference
Mercyhurst is bumping up its athletics program. The private Catholic-affiliated institution in Erie announced Thursday that it accepted an invitation into the Division I Northeast Conference, effective this fall for the 2024-25 academic year. With the exception of the men’s and women’s ice hockey teams, Lakers athletics currently competes at...
Increased physicality in men’s volleyball has changed the game, boosted its popularityVideo
Though he has made his living as a volleyball coach, Penn State’s Mark Pavlik is a student of all sports, just as likely to talk about screen passes and slap shots as he is spikes and side-outs. Pavlik, a Derry grad, recently was watching highlights of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers....
A-K Valley campus clippings: Highlands grad Haidze on tear for IUP softball
Highlands graduate Jaycee Haidze is having a strong early season for the IUP softball team. The sophomore right-handed pitcher and infielder earned PSAC Western Division Athlete of the Week for softball after hitting .524 (11 of 21) in seven games last week. She totaled four doubles, two home runs and...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Hempfield grad Ty Linsenbigler transfers to Seton Hill
Ty Linsenbigler is coming home. The former Hempfield standout wrestler is leaving Lock Haven to compete at Seton Hill, where he will reunite with his high school coach, Vince DeAugustine. Wrestling unattached last season as a redshirt sophomore, Linsenbigler went 16-9 with four major decisions and one pin. He was...
Speedy Mackenzie Favero, a Kiski Area grad, making her presence felt at top of Saint Vincent softball lineup
Mackenzie Favero prides herself on being organized. As a college athlete who also is pursuing a nursing degree, her knack for being efficient and orderly comes in handy. But the Kiski Area grad can thrive in chaos, too. It’s the chaos she creates for the opposition as the leadoff hitter...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Sophomore makes history in Pitt-Greensburg baseball’s home opener
Homer rhymes with Domer. Pitt-Greensburg sophomore baseball player James Domer launched a game-winning home run, and earned his first pitching win, as the Bobcats outslugged Chatham, 15-13, in their home opener. In a performance to beat the band, Domer went 6 for 6 with two homers, two doubles, five runs...
Even in reduced role, Knoch grad Fischer proving valuable to IUP softball team
IUP softball coach Shawna Bellaud remembers the moment vividly. During the past offseason, rising senior pitcher Amanda Fischer came to her and said she wasn’t sure if she could continue playing softball. Years in the game had taken their toll physically, and some nagging aches and pains made Fischer reluctant...
Hempfield grad Olivia Persin’s return to form helps set example for young Saint Vincent softball team
Success can breed additional success. But success also can breed pressure. That’s what Saint Vincent senior softball player Olivia Persin figures happened to her last season. Not that a stat line featuring a .328 batting average with 11 RBIs and a team-leading 36 runs is poor by any stretch. Compared...
Knee injury behind her, Southmoreland grad Olivia Cernuto helps Gannon women’s basketball reach Elite Eight
Gannon women’s basketball coach Cleve Wright didn’t hesitate. When he found out Olivia Cernuto suffered an ACL injury during soccer that would wipe out her senior basketball season, he immediately made a trip to Southmoreland. Cernuto, who led the Scotties girls basketball team to two WPIAL Class 4A title games,...
Knoch grad Angelo DeLeonardis emerging as key player in 2nd year with Chatham baseball
When Angelo DeLeonardis arrived at Chatham last fall, he was eager to contribute during his freshman baseball season. Coach Nic Rush saw enough in DeLeonardis that convinced him he could be a catcher at the college level right away. But here’s the rub. The Cougars were returning two experienced catchers....
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Latrobe grad Landon Butler enters transfer portal
Landon Butler’s two brothers have experienced the NCAA transfer portal. Now, he will, too. Butler, a 6-foot-4 freshman, is leaving Montevallo, a Division II school in Alabama, after one season on the basketball team. A Latrobe graduate, Butler played in 28 games, starting seven, and averaged 3.8 points and 2.3...
Point Park men’s basketball team headed for NAIA Tournament thanks to quick turnaround
When veteran coach Kevin Reynolds took over the Point Park men’s basketball team in April 2022, he inherited a group that went 10-16 the season before. And two of those wins came via forfeit. Plus, the program hadn’t had a winning season since 2015-16, so Reynolds had a tall task...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Seton Hill’s Marc Marizzaldi earns 700th career win
What a way to close out a spring break trip. Seton Hill baseball brushed past Florida Southern, 3-1, to give longtime coach Marc Marizzaldi his 700th career win. Grad shortstop Owen Sabol (Norwin) had two hits, senior pitcher Aidan Layton earned the win and struck out eight and junior closer...
Westmoreland campus clippings: Latrobe grad Bryce Butler honored by CAA
Bryce Butler quickly found out what his role would be when he made the jump to Division I college basketball. He accepted it with a sense of gratitude and committed to being one of the best reserves in the game. The grad student guard at the College of Charleston came...
Westmoreland products Ashley Orischak, Olivia Kolowitz poised to help St. Francis (Pa.) softball get back to top of NEC
The St. Francis (Pa.) softball team has become accustomed to a fair amount of success in recent years. Since 2017, the Red Flash have won five Northeast Conference titles and made the same number of appearances in the NCAA Tournament. In 2017, with Plum’s Jordan Seneca and Yough’s Kelsie Marconi...
Penn State New Kensington softball team aims for return to conference championship
As members of the Penn State New Kensington softball team prepared for their season-opening spring trip to Florida, Molly Collins sent each player a list outlining exactly what she would need for the journey south. Sophomore pitcher Addy Gregg said Collins, a Riverview grad and PSNK’s only senior, is affectionately...
AK Valley campus clippings: Fox Chapel’s Borkovich earns award for SRU softball
Slippery Rock sophomore pitcher Mackenzie Borkovich, a Fox Chapel graduate, was named the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division Pitcher of the Week on Tuesday for her work against Shippensburg and Shepherd in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference doubleheaders over the previous two days. She was in the circle as a...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Ligonier Valley grad sets javelin record
It looks like Miles Higgins is glad to get outside again. The sophomore from UNC-Wilmington opened the outdoor track and field season with a bang by winning the javelin title at the UNCW Seahawk Invitational. Higgins, a Ligonier Valley graduate, set a school record with a toss of 64.97 meters....
Seton Hill baseball knocks off nation’s No. 1 team
Christian Zilli (Hempfield) pitched a scoreless 11th inning to earn his third save of the season, and Noah Sweeney (Greensburg Salem) drove in Aidan Shephard (Norwin) for the winning run on a double play grounder as Seton Hill handed No. 1 Tampa its first loss of the season, 6-5, on...
Kiski Area grad Logan Bechtold bumps up in weight to help Saint Vincent wrestling win PAC title
By the time the Presidents’ Athletic Conference wrestling championship reached the finals, the outcome was all but decided. Saint Vincent, in the first year of its second incarnation, had seven wrestlers competing for titles, making the result almost anticlimactic. But once their title was made official via public address announcement,...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Saint Vincent’s Jaden Gales named PAC’s MVP
A player who puts the power in power forward, Jaden Gales made his presence known every time he took the basketball court this season for Saint Vincent. Whether he was throwing down an alley-oop dunk, running wide and finishing a break or swatting a shot into the second row, Gales...
Saint Vincent club hockey team qualifies for national tournament, to delight of former coach
His euphoric acclamation was a clear sign Mike Ziemianski couldn’t have been prouder. The former longtime Saint Vincent coach was overcome with emotion in the moments after the school’s recent club hockey victory over IUP, securing the program’s first College Hockey East playoff championship and third trip to the American...
