High School category, Page 1053
‘Position-less basketball’ draws Penn Hills’ A’Lysa Sledge to UMass LowellVideo
A’Lysa Sledge owns point guard skills and the size of a forward, a combination that lets her play every position on the floor for Penn Hills. That versatility also makes her an ideal fit for UMass Lowell’s basketball team, so the 5-foot-11 rising senior committed Saturday to River Hawks coach...
Hempfield zeros in on new athletic director
There is a Hempfield Area School Board meeting Monday, but don’t expect them to hire a new athletic director. That should come at the June 15 meeting, according to board member and head of the athletic committee Vince DeAugustine. The hiring committee, headed by superintendent Tammy Wolicki, interviewed 11 candidates...
Indiana rising sophomore Eve Fiala draws Pitt basketball offerVideo
Indiana’s Eve Fiala, who’s part of a talented 2023 WPIAL basketball class, added a scholarship offer Saturday from Pitt. She will be a sophomore in the fall. The 6-foot-4 center averaged 15 points last season for Indiana, which reached the WPIAL Class 4A quarterfinals. She received her first Division I...
Senior Spotlight: Latrobe captain hoped to lift Wildcats into title contention
Editor’s note: Each day, Trib HSSN will spotlight WPIAL spring athletes whose senior years were cut short by the coronavirus pandemic. Ainsley Novotny and her senior teammates worked the past three years to help Latrobe girls lacrosse compete with the WPIAL powerhouses. The group hoped this would be their year...
Westmoreland high school notebook: No decision yet on 7-on-7 tournament
The waiting game continues for the Westmoreland County Coaches Association 7-on-7 football championship. Don’t write off the event just yet. The county organization wants to have the annual passing tournament July 18 as scheduled but needs the go-ahead from the state in the way of Gov. Tom Wolf’s phased return...
PIAA’s spring sports cancellation especially tough for new softball, baseball coaches
Bob Kovalcin did not coach a game this season at Latrobe, but the man who came out of retirement to lead the Wildcats softball team has spent the last couple of weeks conducting exit meetings with his players. The asterisk-stamped season never happened because it was claimed by coronavirus restrictions....
Trib HSSN June Madness quarterfinals results for Friday, June 5
The HSSN June Madness results are in from Friday, June 5 in the quarterfinals of the brackets to determine the WPIAL Athlete of the Century. They say speed kills. That was the case in the first girls’ quarterfinals matchup as Lauryn Williams of Rochester raced past Christa Harmotto of Hopewell....
Bill Cowher surprises Carlynton grads with virtual commencement speech
Graduating from high school during a pandemic has eliminated many of the traditional trappings associated with the annual ceremony, but there is a bright side. When schools turn graduation into a virtual occasion, they are sometimes able to secure commencement speakers who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to attend in...
Sports might return sooner if schools prepare covid-19 plans now, PIAA says
The PIAA wants schools to use this downtime wisely. It’s unclear when Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration will release covid-19 guidelines to restart interscholastic sports, but in the meantime, the PIAA is asking school administrators to start making plans for their own districts, PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said Friday. That...
With statewide American Legion season called off, another local league hoping to start soon
Another area group is planning to hold a season for teams that would have normally played American Legion baseball this summer in Washington, Westmoreland, Fayette and Allegheny counties. The Western Pennsylvania Baseball League hopes to begin play with exhibition games June 13. The regular season will open June 17. According...
Cheswick Christian Academy pastor and ex-basketball coach ‘doing well’ after heart transplant
Clinton Blazevich returned to Allegheny General Hospital on Thursday for a test to see how everything is progressing with his new heart. His numbers, he said, continue to move in the right direction. It has been a month and a half since the April 22 transplant, and the pastor at...
Central Valley safety Stephon Hall chooses Pitt
Stephon Hall’s path to a Pitt scholarship started six months ago. In Central Valley’s victory against Aliquippa in the WPIAL Class 3A championship game, Hall picked off two passes in the fourth quarter and helped stop the Quips’ 2-point conversion attempt in overtime to nail down a 13-12 victory. Three...
Quaker Valley’s Bailey Garbee commits to American, turns teammates into rivalsVideo
Quaker Valley basketball teammates Bailey Garbee and Corinne Washington made college commitments this spring to separate schools, but they’ll still see one another at least a couple of times a year. A 5-foot-11 forward, Garbee announced a commitment Thursday to American. Her decision came several weeks after Washington committed to...
Trib HSSN May Madness quarterfinals results for Thursday, June 4
The HSSN June Madness results are in from Thursday, June 4 in the quarterfinals of the brackets to determine the WPIAL Athlete of the Century. The first matchup in the quarterfinals was a stunner. Not by the final result, but by the margin of victory for A.Q. Shipley of Moon...
Trib HSSN June Madness quarterfinals: Lauryn Williams, Rochester vs. Christa Harmotto, Hopewell
Over the course of the next few weeks, June Madness will determine who fans believe is the WPIAL Athlete of the Century. HSSN has put together two 32-player brackets, one for the boys and one for the girls, of WPIAL alums. Outside of a few exceptions, the field is made...
Decade’s best WPIAL finals: Softball No. 3
From classification expansion to field renovations forcing a change in the venue for the district championships, there was a lot going on with the WPIAL softball championships this past decade. From Lilly Field at Cal (Pa.) to Seton Hill to a mishmash of title games played here and there or...
Derry names Skillings next football coach
Vince Skillings was an all-state running back at Derry from 1974-77. Now Skillings, 61, returns to his alma mater to coach his beloved Trojans. It’s his first head-coaching job. Skillings was hired by the Derry Area School District’s school board to replace highly successful coach Tim Sweeney, also a Derry...
Senior Spotlight: Franklin Regional lacrosse standout denied shot at championship, still gets a parade
Editor’s note: Each day, Trib HSSN will spotlight WPIAL spring athletes whose senior years were cut short by the coronavirus pandemic. Noelle Boyd has heard plenty of cheers from the stands as a member of the girls lacrosse team at Franklin Regional. On Friday evening, she will be cheered once...
Who were the PIAA football teams of the decade? MaxPreps ranks the Top 20
The most dominant high school football team in the state last decade wasn’t from Western Pennsylvania, but six WPIAL programs did make the list. MaxPreps created a formula to rank the teams of the decade and crowned St. Joseph’s Prep as the winner Wednesday. Among WPIAL teams, North Allegheny was...
Trib HSSN June Madness results for Wednesday, June 3
The HSSN June Madness results are in from Wednesday, June 3 in the second round of the brackets to determine the WPIAL Athlete of the Century. It was a good day for a pair of northern school athletes as the Sweet 16 round in the Best of the Century has...
Pro golfer Rachel Rohanna talks about playing on boys team at Waynesburg, how perfection and golf don’t mix
Trib HSSN has been fortunate to cover a lot of great athletes over past two decades. While the ‘Best of the Century’ contest continues, we now feature some of these high school stars twice a week Monday and Thursday on the Rebel Yell podcast. More than a decade later, 2009...
Trib HSSN June Madness quarterfinals: Terrelle Pryor, Jeannette vs. A.Q. Shipley, Moon
Over the course of the next few weeks, June Madness will determine who fans believe is the WPIAL Athlete of the Century. HSSN has put together two 32-player brackets, one for the boys and one for the girls, of WPIAL alums. Outside of a few exceptions, the field is made...
Decade’s best WPIAL finals: Baseball No. 4
While it almost became a theme to repeat in WPIAL softball this past decade, it was nearly an impossible dream for district baseball teams. Wild Things Park in Washington continued to be the home for the WPIAL baseball championships, but only twice in 42 title games was a school successful...
Travel softball teams returning to action, trying to get used to coronavirus guidelines
Travel softball will return to Pennsylvania later this month and players and coaches, particularly those who missed out on the high school season, are bubbling with anticipation to play again. When they finally return to the field, they will be met with a laundry list of new safety guidelines brought...
‘Sadness’ for athletes, coaches and alumni as Quigley Catholic closes doors
Where’s the rest of your team? It’s a lighthearted question that makes Quigley Catholic boys soccer coach Dave Baker laugh years later, thinking back to a time when his players shared the field with powerhouse Sewickley Academy. “They had two squads of 30,” Baker said. “They have a varsity team...
