High School category, Page 47

Brendan Blair knows the grind of football in Western Pennsylvania. Having grown up in Stowe Township, Blair played for Sto-Rox, graduating in 2014. After attending Cal (Pa.), where he earned a business degree, he returned to the area and got involved in coaching. Before long, Blair was announced as the...

Seton LaSalle coach Tim Storino is anticipating that the team’s recent growth pattern continues in 2025. The Rebels were 0-10 and 5-5 in Storino’s first two years as field boss then made the leap to 11-1 and WPIAL finalists last fall. “Our expectations have not really changed,” Storino said. “The...

Keystone Oaks coach Steve McCormick identified Owen Gearhart as a strong option at quarterback. The benefit of rotating players into different roles is that when a new year comes around, they are capable of handling a variety of tasks. Gearhart will be tasked with helping the Golden Eagles attempt to...

Carlynton senior linebacker Grant Freidhoff has an idea of what things should look like when everything is going well. The Cougars closed out last season with three consecutive wins to end a 23-year playoff drought and earn a WPIAL Class 2A playoff spot out of the Century Conference. While Western...

The clunking of dumbbells and iron plates in the Monessen weight room at 4 a.m. likely went unnoticed. Of course it did. Who is awake at that hour? The source of the clatter was rising senior football player T.J. Taylor. Throughout the school year, he was in the weight room...

TribLive HSSN will break down the top players at one position per day until Week Zero. Here is a look at the top defensive ends for the 2025 season. 1. Ashton Blatt Central Catholic Senior, 6-4, 230 Blatt is a dynamic pass rusher for a Central Catholic defense that celebrated...

The watch list for the Moe Rosensteel Most Outstanding Player Award — the top girls soccer player in the WPIAL — came out last week. Local players to make the list are Addison Ayres of Franklin Regional, Annalyse Bauer of Latrobe, Morgan Gesinski of Mt. Pleasant, Jiana Patterson of Hempfield...

Elena Arnold didn’t decide to transfer from Saint Francis to Rollins College for any one specific reason. It was, instead, due to a myriad of reasons. “Many things drew me to this decision,” Arnold, a former volleyball standout at Eden Christian Academy, said. “Ultimately, I was not making the on-court...

Mike Vavrek is now in his 15th year as head coach of the Quaker Valley girls volleyball program. Vavrek will be helped out this season by longtime assistant Mike Hensler and first-year assistant Lanie French. The QV girls have a tough act to follow in 2025 as the Quakers captured...

The Hampton girls tennis team has a place to call home again, but the names and faces are a little different. Coming off the best two-year stretch in program history, the Talbots enter the 2025 season with a new-look lineup and some early question marks. Four of the top seven...

Cameryn Brindza enjoyed the learning experience that came along with participating in the Maccabi Games. The event, which was held in Pittsburgh during the first week of August, was an international competition for Jewish teenagers similar to the Olympics. Brindza, 16, attends Fox Chapel and won six medals in swimming...

Three Quaker Valley golfers qualified for the PIAA Class 2A individual championships last season. Two were seniors — Ethan Dai and Nolan Wagoner — who ended their high school golf careers at the Penn State Blue Course. The third qualifier — Makenna Kamnikar — is back this season. Kamnikar finished...

Quaker Valley’s boys soccer team finished 14-4-1 in 2024 in Sean Ryan’s first year in charge of the program. QV ended the regular season with a 14-game unbeaten streak and first-place finish in Section 2-2A. The Quakers, who outscored opponents 86-8 in section play and 87-14 overall, tied with Avonworth...

High schools Football Scrimmages Saturday’s schedule Aliquippa at Hickory, 10 a.m. Ambridge at New Brighton, 10 a.m. Apollo-Ridge, Brashear at Riverview, 10 a.m. Armstrong at Butler, 10 a.m. Avella at Fort Cherry, 10 a.m. Avonworth at New Castle, 10 a.m. Belle Vernon at Gateway, 10 a.m. Bentworth at Carlynton, 10...

Editor’s note: Trib HSSN will publish team-by-team previews for one conference per day until the start of the high school football season Aug. 22. There are two aspects to the turnaround of the Ellwood City program that help make it one of the best stories going in WPIAL football. First...

When your football program boasts 122 years of tradition, not to mention six WPIAL football titles, you can consider yourself among the elite programs in Western Pennsylvania’s storied history. Despite a winless 2024 season that included six shutouts and a scoring disparity of 306 points, things are trending up for...

The book (and movie and TV show) wasn’t called “Saturday Afternoon Sunshine.” It was “Friday Night Lights,” and that’s a concept Western Beaver will become much more familiar with this season. The Golden Beavers have been playing at Rich Niedbala Field at the high school in Industry for 63 years....

There is an old saying that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. And in the case of Kim Niedbala, his coaching legacy starts with his father Rich, who spent 31 years in charge at Western Beaver. The road traveled for Kim was paved mostly in the college...

Rob Magnifico returns for a second season as head coach at Riverside in 2025 after leading the Panthers to the WPIAL playoffs last season. The story of how Magnifico came to be coach of Riverside, given the fact that he’s an Ellwood City native who played and then coached the...

After two consecutive seasons without a single win, New Brighton coach John Macuga set a goal in 2024 to change the mentality of his players and help them establish a winning persona. “It’s been a point of emphasis for the players,” Macuga said before camp in 2024. “We must learn...

The long summer days that lead to the start of a football season are where many coaches feel wins and losses will be determined, based on the effort put in. Mohawk coach Tim McCutcheon is no different, logging hours that go into the evening most days. But to build a...

For visitors meeting with Freedom football coach Ron Balog before the start of preseason camp, the most striking sight on campus was probably the baseball turf being torn up awaiting a new surface. But what really grabbed attention was the large banner hanging from the back of the bleachers reminding...

There was a time when Saturday afternoon marked a busy end to a high school football weekend around the WPIAL. Twenty years ago, 11 district schools played their home football games on Saturdays, with Bishop Canevin, Duquesne, Geibel Catholic, Riverview, Serra Catholic, Shady Side Academy, Shenango, South Side, Summit Academy,...

Hempfield rising senior softball player Claire Mitchell has flipped her college commitment following a coaching change. Mitchell, a standout outfielder, announced she is no longer committed to Maryland Baltimore County and instead will play at Marist of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. She decided to leave UMBC after the resignation...

Throughout their lives, as brothers often do, Aven and Teegan Shirley have found different avenues to be competitive with each other. When they were younger, it involved them tackling each other in the attic, which later would turn into fistfights, or going against each other on one-on-one passing routes with...