District College category, Page 18
Gateway grads Sarah Corrie, Shelly Jones take top 2 spots in PSAC shot put competition
Sarah Corrie came close to securing a spot at the NCAA Division II indoor track and field championships. The Slippery Rock graduate student captured the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference shot put title Feb. 19 at Lehigh and helped her team win its seventh PSAC team title. Her season-best of 14.21...
Former GCC track star Corinn Brewer working to bring women’s decathlon to the Olympics
Decathlete Corinn Brewer is working to change the Olympics. A lofty sounding goal? Yes. But not to the former Greensburg Central Catholic track and field standout who is a first-year multi-event athlete and pole vaulter at Lehigh. Brewer is pushing for the games to add the women’s decathlon, an event...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Saint Vincent wins hockey title
You can keep your cups. Saint Vincent hockey is playing for belts. For the first time in program history, Saint Vincent won the College Hockey East Division 3 championship belt. It was the program’s first title since the 1976-77 team won the WPIHA championship. The Polar Bearcats skated past IUP...
Westmoreland campus clippings: Mt. Pleasant’s Brunson excelling at plate for Penn State softball
The Penn State softball team is cooking — with a new chef in the kitchen. First-year Nittany Lions outfielder Haylie Brunson, a junior from Mt. Pleasant and a former TribLive Westmoreland player of the year, is hitting a team-best .385 (15 for 39) with two homers and 14 RBIs. She...
Newfound confidence has Hempfield grad Isaiah Vance thinking about wrestling for national title at UPJ
Pat Pecora has coached many talented wrestlers in his legendary career at Pitt-Johnstown. All-Americans. National champions. But there’s only one Carlton Haselrig. Pecora calls him “the greatest heavyweight of all time,” and there’s not a lot of hyperbole in Pecora’s assertion. Haselrig won three NCAA Division II titles and three...
Geneva men, Chatham women claim 2024 PAC basketball titles
Jonathan Bertovich had 20 points, and Mark Rachic added 18 off the bench to lift host Geneva to an 83-63 victory over Saint Vincent in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference men’s basketball championship game Saturday night. Bertovich knocked down 4 of 5 shots from behind the 3-point arc and was 8...
Saint Vincent, Geneva to meet for PAC men’s basketball title
Presidents’ Athletic Conference men’s basketball championship Who: No. 2 seed Saint Vincent (23-3) at No. 1 Geneva (23-3) When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday Where: Metheny Fieldhouse, Beaver Falls Livestream: www.pacstream.net Coaches: D.P. Harris, Saint Vincent; Jeff Santarsiero, Geneva Players to watch: Dev Ostrowski, Saint Vincent; Trevor Tipton, Geneva Notable: The finalists...
Carnegie Mellon’s Gary Aldrich named throws coach for U.S. team at Paris Olympics
Carnegie Mellon track and field coach Gary Aldrich will make his eighth international coaching assignment this summer at the Paris Olympics as the U.S.A. men’s throws coach, CMU announced Thursday. Aldrich held the same position at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. “It was hard to find the words when I was...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Southmoreland grad picked for coaching program
Duquesne assistant women’s basketball coach Vanessa Abel was selected to participate in the Next Generation Institute by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association. Abel is a former Southmoreland standout and a Duquesne alum. The second-year institute is an educational program for experienced assistants who have aspirations to be head coaches in...
Apollo-Ridge grad Olivia Stiffy uses gymnastics, cheer background as part of new STUNT team at Mercyhurst
While she was growing up, Olivia Stiffy competed as a gymnast for nearly a decade, including representing Apollo-Ridge at the WPIAL level. But she never considered playing any kind of sports beyond high school. Also a longtime cheerleader, Stiffy joined the football cheer squad at Mercyhurst, which seemed to satisfy...
Saint Vincent women’s bowling raises its profile nationally with steady success
Saint Vincent, to most of the outside world, is known as the long-time training camp home of the Pittsburgh Steelers. When Jeff Zidek started the Bearcats’ women’s bowling program seven years ago, that was one of his big selling points when he contacted potential recruits. Now, potential recruits are contacting...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Saint Vincent captures PAC wrestling title in 1st season back
It was like Saint Vincent had been here before. But if there was a feeling of deja vu, it was probably driven by adrenaline, not history. The Bearcats, who resurrected their wrestling program after nearly five decades away, cleaned up in their first Presidents’ Athletic Conference Championships. Three wrestlers won...
Former Hampton standout making waves at Gannon
Former state champion Will Retsch graduated from Hampton as one of the most decorated swimmers in program history. He didn’t need long to make a splash in college. Retsch broke the Gannon school record in the 200 individual medley less than two months into his freshman season and is following...
WPIAL scoring champ Vinnie Cugini settling into role as freshman at Pitt-Johnstown
The WPIAL’s all-time scoring leader is making his point in other ways as a freshman at Pitt-Johnstown. Former Aquinas Academy star guard Vinnie Cugini is off to an encouraging debut season at the Division II PSAC school. Cugini, who scored a WPIAL-record 3,189 points at the tiny Catholic school in...
Plum grad Phillip McNeal starts college track career by setting pair of marks for Saint Vincent
Phillip “P.J.” McNeal might have taken awhile to find his footing as a track athlete. But it didn’t take the Plum grad long to find his place in the Saint Vincent record books. In his first college indoor meet, Dec. 1 at Youngstown State, McNeal ran the 200-meter dash in...
Greensburg Salem grad Abby Mankins ups her production in 2nd season with Seton Hill women’s basketball
Abby Mankins spent most of her freshman season with the Seton Hill women’s basketball team getting adjusted to the college game. Though she appeared in all 32 games, the Greensburg Salem grad’s contributions were modest as she averaged 1.3 points in just over 10 minutes per game. So as her...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Franklin Regional’s Michael Kemerer joins Brown coaching staff
Five-time All-American wrestler Michael Kemerer, a former standout at Franklin Regional and Iowa, is joining the coaching staff at Brown. Kemerer was an NCAA finalist in 2021 at 174 pounds. In December, he posted on “X,” formerly known as Twitter, that he planned to return from competitive wrestling “after some...
Gateway grad Sarah Corrie chasing PSAC indoor shot put title
Sarah Corrie is on a mission to bring home another Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference shot put title this winter, and the Gateway graduate is on her way to again challenging for gold. The Slippery Rock standout kicked off the indoor season Dec. 2 with a runner-up finish at the Youngstown...
Westmoreland campus clippings: Latrobe grad among Duquesne’s best high jumpers
Duquesne senior Sadie Wetzel (Latrobe) moved into a tie for second place on the Dukes’ all-time performance list in the the high jump with a third-place leap of 1.72 meters at the Akron Invitational. She tied Shannon Taub, who is an assistant coach for the Dukes. Wetzel has set a...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Southmoreland’s Brandon Stone turning pro
Former Southmoreland standout Brandon Stone has left the men’s basketball team at Delaware State and has set a course for the professional level. The 6-foot-11 forward hired an agent and will pursue potential opportunities overseas. He graduated in December. Stone played two seasons at Delaware State after transferring from Robert...
Penn State New Ken men’s basketball team seeking consistency for stretch run
This season has been a roller-coaster ride for the Penn State New Kensington men’s basketball team. Now, as the season heads into its final three weeks, the Lions hope to find the consistency that has eluded them for much of the past two months. “Yes, it’s definitely been up and...
AK Valley campus clippings: Freeport grad Heilman earns preseason honors
Freeport graduate Jarrett Heilman, a senior pitcher at Mercyhurst, has been tabbed a preseason All-American for Division II by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. The righty is coming off his best season as Laker. He logged 65 innings on the mound while posting a 1.38 ERA, the third-best in...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Seton Hill baseball picked to win PSAC West
Maybe you’ve heard this one before … Another outstanding season could be in store for the Seton Hill baseball team, which went 48-13 (26-2 PSAC) last season and reached the NCAA Atlantic Super Regional. For the fourth straight year, the team is favored to win the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference...
Freeport grad Alexis Schrecongost takes off with Edinboro swimming after transferring from ToledoVideo
Like a lot of athletes, Alexis Schrecongost had visions of being a Division I athlete. During her time as a swimmer at Freeport, she proved herself worthy of competing against the nation’s best, earning a scholarship to Toledo. But Schrecongost found out that being a Division I athlete sometimes it...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: GCC grad Nate Ward transfers to Duquesne
Nate Ward is coming home. After spending four years playing soccer in the Big Ten Conference at Indiana, the former Greensburg Central Catholic standout is set to play a fifth year at Duquesne. Ward, a former TribLive Westmoreland player of the year, graduated from Indiana in December. “I had an...
