Sports category, Page 1241
Penn State’s James Franklin to arrive via helicopter to watch Quinton Martin, Belle Vernon play Laurel Highlands
James Franklin will make quite an entrance tonight at Belle Vernon. The Penn State football coach is expected to arrive by helicopter to watch Laurel Highlands play Belle Vernon — and five-star junior Quinton Martin, the top-rated 2024 prospect in the state — at James Weir Stadium. Belle Vernon athletic...
College Football Playoff to expand to 12 teams by 2026 season
After 14 1/2 months of haggling over details and questioning motivations, a plan to expand the College Football Playoff from four teams to 12 finally was approved Friday to set the stage for a multibillion-dollar tournament as soon as the 2024 season. What still needs to be determined is just...
Top 5 biggest crowds in Pittsburgh sports history
Traffic tie-ups well before rush hour, tailgate parties springing up at many parking spots on the North Shore and a record crowd inside Acrisure Stadium made the renewal of the Backyard Brawl special. More so for victorious Pitt than West Virginia, considering that the Mountaineers led by seven deep into...
Mark Madden: Dave Parker is being honored by Pirates, but he deserves more
Saturday is that rarest of days in Pittsburgh: A time when baseball can legitimately be celebrated, as opposed to convincing ourselves it’s OK to rarely make contact with the ball as long as it travels over 110 mph when you do, even if it’s caught. Not only is it OK,...
Experienced roster returns to lead Saint Vincent football into 2022 campaign
For Saint Vincent football fans, there’s a lot to like about the Bearcats this year. For starters, they return 17 of them from a team that made just its third all-time postseason appearance, a 38-19 loss to FDU-Florham at the ECAC James Lynah Bowl in Madison, N.J. But it ended...
Pitt notebook: WVU coach Neal Brown defends 4th-quarter punt, would do it again
The game was sitting there for the West Virginia Mountaineers to secure in their travel bags, hit the country roads and return to Morgantown with a shocking upset. But Neal Brown decided to punt. With 6 minutes, 17 seconds left and WVU leading No. 17 Pitt, 31-24, on Thursday night...
Deer Lakes grad Maxx Hammond leads Allegheny football into Presidents’ Athletic ConferenceVideo
For the first time since 1984, Allegheny’s sports teams will be playing in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference. The move back from the North Coast Athletic Conference will enable the Gators to forge rivalries with schools closer to home. And like their new PAC counterparts, the Gators have a number of...
Scott Township’s Christian Kuntz seeks to replicate debut season as Steelers long snapper
The player he works closest with on the team holds Christian Kuntz in particularly high esteem. “Christian,” Pressley Harvin III said, “he’s the G.O.A.T., man. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, the G.O.A.T.” G.O.A.T., of course, stands for “greatest of all time.” Embarrassed when told of his good buddy’s description of...
Tim Benz: YAC drives comeback as Pitt passes first post-Pickett test
The image of Kenny Pickett was hovering over Pitt’s season opener Thursday night. Literally. During the first timeout against West Virginia, the former Heisman Trophy candidate was in one of Acrisure Stadium’s open-end rotundas, unfurling the team’s 2021 ACC title banner as a crowd of 70,622 wildly applauded. All new...
West Virginia matches Pitt in mishaps, spoiling upset bid
No one could claim that the first Backyard Brawl in 11 years was lacking in excitement. Multiple lead changes, momentum shifts and an overturned completed pass call on fourth-and-16 with 22 seconds to play that took away a chance for West Virginia, trailing by a touchdown, to tie the game...
District college roundup: Cal (Pa.) rolls in opener; St. Francis (Pa.) puts scare into Akron
Serra Catholic grad JaQuae Jackson caught 10 passes for 113 yards and two touchdowns as Cal (Pa.) jumped out to a three touchdown lead in the first half and rolled to a 35-15 victory over Fairmont State on Thursday night. Noah Mitchell was 18 for 25 for 212 yards and...
Sean Clifford’s masterful final drive sends Penn State past Purdue
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Sean Clifford threw a 10-yard TD pass to Keyvone Lee with 57 seconds left Thursday night rallying Penn State to a 35-31 victory over Purdue. Penn State has won 10 straight in the series and six of its last seven season openers. Purdue hasn’t beaten the...
Pirates farm report for Sept. 1, 2022: Endy Rodriguez homers from both sides of plate in Curve win
INDIANAPOLIS (Triple-A, 64-60) scored three runs in the seventh inning to beat Louisville (Reds), 3-2. RF Bligh Madris (.286) went 2 for 5 with two doubles and a stolen base and reached on an error on the play that drove in the winning run. CF Travis Swaggerty (.256) went 1...
Pitt rallies late to secure 38-31 victory against West Virginia in Backyard BrawlVideo
Dave Wannstedt’s words carried across the room and into M.J. Devonshire’s head long before Pitt put a lock on what became an improbable Backyard Brawl victory, 38-31, against West Virginia. “He said it: ‘Somebody is always going to be legendary and it could be you,’ ” Devonshire said of the...
Before Brawl, Tony Dorsett lends a hand in Pitt’s recruiting efforts
The Pitt sideline at Acrisure Stadium was teeming with recruits and recruiters before the West Virginia-Pitt game Thursday night. One guy — an unofficial Pitt recruiter — stood out among the crowd. Tony Dorsett, who is Pitt’s only Heisman Trophy winner, was engaged in an animated conversation with Austintown Fitch...
Iga Swiatek winning easily, but she knows who’s No. 1 at U.S. OpenVideo
NEW YORK — Iga Swiatek is winning easily — and quietly. At this U.S. Open, even the world’s No. 1 player is a distant No. 2 as long as Serena Williams is still around. “Yeah, that’s kind of her time right now,” Swiatek said. “I’m just, you know, playing and...
Commanders RB Brian Robinson to miss 1st 4 games after being shotVideo
OXON HILL, Md. — Brian Robinson Jr. will miss at least the Washington Commanders’ first four games after being shot during an attempted robbery last weekend. The team put the rookie running back on the non-football injury list Thursday, a move that makes Washington’s game Oct. 9 against Tennessee the...
Fans celebrate long-waited return of Backyard Brawl
Pitt and West Virginia fans waited over a decade for the return of the Backyard Brawl, and they weren’t going to wait another minute longer to start partying in the Acrisure Stadium parking lots. There was a line of traffic to get into the stadium parking lots well before they...
AP source: Cavaliers acquiring All-Star Donovan Mitchell from JazzVideo
CLEVELAND — Donovan Mitchell is going east. The All-Star guard is on his way to the Cleveland Cavaliers, who acquired one of the NBA’s best scorers Thursday in a blockbuster trade with the Utah Jazz, a person familiar with the deal told the Associated Press. Cleveland is sending guard Collin...
Steelers bring back former OLB Jamir Jones on waiver claim, cut Derrek Tuszka
Not content with upgrading one of the backup outside linebacker positions this week, the Pittsburgh Steelers brought back a former player to fill another spot Thursday. Jamir Jones, who was lost on a waiver claim last season, was brought back the same way, and he is replacing the player who...
Duquesne will open nonconference schedule Nov. 8 with home game against Montana
Duquesne men’s basketball coach Keith Dambrot will put his 34-18 nonconference record on the line with a 13-game schedule that begins Nov. 8 against Montana at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse. Duquesne is 84-3 when opening at home (4-0 under Dambrot). The Dukes will leave the city for only two games...
Steelers place WR Calvin Austin, S Damontae Kazee on IR, bring back Marcus Allen, Trent Scott
Not content with upgrading one of their backup outside linebacker positions this week, the Pittsburgh Steelers brought back a former player to fill another Thursday. Jamir Jones, who was lost on a waivers claim last season, was brought back via the same route, and he is replacing the player who...
RHP Johan Oviedo to make Pirates debut in start against Blue Jays on Friday night
Johan Oviedo, the 24-year-old right-handed pitcher acquired from St. Louis in the Jose Quintana trade, will make his Pittsburgh Pirates debut when he starts Friday night against the Toronto Blue Jays. The Pirates announced the 6-foot-5, 245-pound Oviedo will start Friday, right-hander Roansy Contreras on Saturday and right-hander JT Brubaker...
ESPN’s Rece Davis, Desmond Howard relish college rivalries like the Backyard Brawl
Never more so than now has money been in the face of a casual college football fan. Of course, across collegiate athletics, dollar signs were always the straw that stirred the drink. But nowadays, the differences between the business models of college football and say, the NFL or NBA, have...
AP source: Russell Wilson gets five-year, $245M extension
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The Denver Broncos and quarterback Russell Wilson have agreed on a five-year, $245 million extension that includes $165 million in guarantees, a person with knowledge of the deal confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday morning. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the extension, first...
