High School category, Page 449
2023 Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team: Keystone Oaks’ Clinton Robinson
Editor’s note: This is the 15th in a series of 25 profiles of the members of the Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team. When Clinton Robinson plays football for Syracuse in fall 2024, he will be used in the defensive backfield. This fall, however, Keystone Oaks coach Steve McCormick plans...
Monessen powderpuff game to benefit families of Altomore, Madzey
Monessen’s senior class is looking to give back while remembering a friend and helping another. The seniors will play a powderpuff football game at 5:30 p.m. Sunday at Memorial Stadium. Organizers hope the fundraiser will allow seniors to purchase a memorial bench for Amari Altomore, who was killed in a...
2023 Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team: West Mifflin’s Rico Steele
Rico Steele earned all-conference honors a year ago as a big-bodied brawler, but the West Mifflin lineman spent the offseason reinventing himself. He’s still big (6-foot-4, 305 pounds) and willing to brawl, but the rising senior sees himself as a different player nowadays, one who’s a little more nimble. He...
Longtime Riverhounds, Quaker Valley soccer coach Gene Klein dies after battle with brain cancer
Gene Klein did not have just an iconic, hall-of-fame coaching career. He lived an exemplary, hall-of-fame life, according to those who knew him best. The former Quaker Valley soccer coach, who was inducted into the WPIAL, Quaker Valley and Pittsburgh Riverhounds halls of fame, died Monday at age 71 after...
2023 Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team: North Allegheny’s Khiryn Boyd
For all of his individual and team achievements as a junior last fall, Khiryn Boyd has stayed humble. The North Allegheny senior was asked about his 2022 season, in which he was a member of the Trib HSSN Terrific 25 all-star team and was named the WPIAL Class 6A Player...
Strong showing at AAU national tournament gives Shaler volleyball players a boost
Logan Peterson felt fortunate that the AAU boys volleyball national championships rolled around in early July. The Shaler senior right-side hitter, who plays for the 17U North United club team, was itching to get back on the court. The Titans lived up to heavy expectations by winning the WPIAL for...
Younger brother is best friend, inspiration to Chartiers Valley assistant baseball coach
Brett Willner is a young assistant baseball coach at Chartiers Valley after an impressive playing career at South Fayette. Having connections to both southern rivals is appropriate because he possesses both the smoothness of a galloping colt and the heart of a lion. Willner recently concluded his third year as...
AD Mike Gavlik bids farewell to Chartiers Valley after 4-year stay
Mike Gavlik just completed his 20th year as an athletic director in the area when an opportunity arose that would bring him closer to home, so he is headed north. The now-former AD at Chartiers Valley has been hired as the new athletic director at Hampton. “I wasn’t necessarily looking...
Multi-sport athletes takes home top honors for 2022-23 school year at Brentwood
The announcement of the Mark Reider award and Booster Athlete award winners is eagerly anticipated at the end of every school year at Brentwood. The awards are sponsored by the Brentwood High Athletic Boosters and are presented to the top male and female senior athletes in a school year. This...
As girls wrestling grows, Quaker Valley looks to build program
The date May 17 is historic and highly significant in the state of Pennsylvania, as well as the WPIAL. The PIAA board of directors voted unanimously on that date to sponsor girls wrestling as a sport, starting in 2023-24. “I think it’s great and long overdue to have the PIAA...
2023 Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team: Imani Christian’s Dayshaun Burnett
Imani Christian’s Dayshaun Burnett continues to show why he is the No. 1 ranked rising junior linebacker in state, according to Rivals.com. Burnett attended the 210ths Top 150 Camp on July 9 at Shady Side Academy, and he didn’t disappoint. He secured linebacker MVP recognition with a dominant performance. “It...
Recruiting by H.S. coaches under microscope after Shady Side basketball coach’s suspension
A one-year suspension is the punishment for any PIAA coach caught recruiting, but is that rule taken seriously in every case and in all corners of the state? Cardinal O’Hara, a member of the Philadelphia Catholic League, recently hired a new boys basketball coach, and some of his candid comments...
Confidence at an all-time high for Norwin grad Jack Salopek at Western Michigan
Quarterback Jack Salopek has never been a rah-rah screamer — in the huddle, at practice or otherwise. You might say he is like a vault emotionally with the way he carries himself and how he plays football. The Norwin alum has always let his game do the talking, and he...
Penn Hills notebook: Senior wrestler showing potential
Jeremy Packer couldn’t be happier to have five wrestlers with him at summer workouts. During his tenure at Penn Hills, the Indians coach has hoped to see the program continue to grow. Senior wrestler Julian Lavender has shown some of the spirit Packer has hoped to see. Lavender, who picked...
North Hills lineman works to end program’s playoff drought
Jake Messina knows a thing or two about building. A senior offensive and defensive lineman at North Hills, Messina has been around house fabrication his entire life via his family’s construction company. As he enters his final season of high school football, he hopes that the bricks he has stacked...
Fox Chapel wrestler tests himself with offseason competition
Landon Funk isn’t opposed to any way to keep himself connected with wrestling. What the Fox Chapel junior found this offseason was a unique dual meet competition to be involved with. Funk, along with teammates Alex Kaufman and Michael Worsen, competed in the Dark Horse Classic, a dual-style match at...
Bethel Park girls volleyball building foundation for upcoming season
Excuse the members of the Bethel Park girls volleyball team if they occasionally sneak a peek at HGTV. “We have an inexperienced varsity roster, but we have been dedicated to improving and building a solid foundation for the team in the gym this summer,” coach Brooke Muraco said. “The plan...
Senior class leaves unprecedented mark on Bethel Park baseball program
It was a tremendous three-year run for the Bethel Park baseball program, particularly for the seniors on the 2023 club. There were 14 upperclassmen — count ‘em, 14 — on the 2023 team, including seven or eight who usually were penciled into the starting lineup. Over the past three seasons,...
Westmoreland County high school notebook: Yough welcomes new girls soccer coach
Yough’s girls soccer team will have its third coach in three years with the hiring of Robert Broadwater, a Pennsylvania state trooper and former Yough middle school coach. Broadwater also served as an assistant with Mike Veychek, who resigned after one season coaching the Cougars. Broadwater was a varsity assistant...
2023 Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team: Central Catholic’s Payton Wehner
Lying in a hospital bed about three years ago, Payton Wehner took inventory of his world. “That was a point in life where, honestly, if I could go back, I wouldn’t change a thing,” said Wehner, Central Catholic’s senior quarterback. Not the wildcat play that resulted in a season-ending injury?...
Yough, Hempfield girls basketball coaches resign
Hempfield and Yough are looking for girls head basketball coaches. Tom Brush resigned at Hempfield, a place where he has coached since 2018. Mike Gerdich, meanwhile, stepped down at Yough following the team’s first playoff trip in 10 years. Brush said his decision is work-related. Since his schedule changed, he...
South Fayette returns to top spot of Trib Cup standings with Class 5A win
For the fourth time, the South Fayette Lions are the kings of the 5A jungles. The white and green machine used steady success and a couple of winter sports championship runs to win the Trib Cup in Class 5A by a comfortable margin. The Trib Cup is a yearlong competition...
2023 Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team: Penn Hills’ Julian Dugger
As a sophomore, Julian Dugger helped Penn Hills win the Northeast Conference Class 5A title and make it to the WPIAL semifinals. The dual-threat quarterback threw for more than 1,300 yards that season. But 2022 was a tough year for the entire Penn Hills program as the team missed the...
Latrobe wins WCCA 7-on-7 tourney for 2nd time in row
As John Wetzel walked off the field Thursday, he made it clear to his teammates he was far from tired. His arm wasn’t sore. His legs were fine. He was charged up. “I’m ready to play another one,” the Latrobe quarterback said with a smile. Transfixed on validating last year’s...
WPIAL suspends Shady Side Academy girls basketball coach Jonna Burke for recruiting violation
When the parents of a basketball player from another school followed her on Twitter, Shady Side Academy coach Jonna Burke checked their profiles and sent them a direct message. “I am really impressed with (your daughter),” Burke wrote. “I’ve seen the highlights she posted and love her athleticism! If you...
