Bill Beckner stories, Page 113

The Tribune-Review and the TribLive High School Sports Network are profiling each member of the 25-player Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star team. The players will be recognized July 22 during HSSN Media Day at Kennywood Park. The leading tackler as a freshman at Central Catholic, Anthony Speca immediately became a...

Liam Ponsonby just turned 7. He has been riding motorcycles for about a year, but he sure knows his way around the mini machine and the tracks on which he competes. Forget about being able to reach the handle bars. Ponsonby is reaching for championships. Ponsonby, who is going into...

Former Norwin and Bucknell wrestling standout Drew Phipps will join the staff at Seton Hill as a graduate assistant. Phipps served as an assistant at Bucknell, which he graduated from in 2020, last season. He piled up 99 wins at the collegiate level and was a two-time NCAA qualifier and...

Trevor Wilson was born in Charlotte, N.C., and eventually made his way to Penn-Trafford where he developed into a talented baseball pitcher. He made his mark in Harrison City, but he always will be a Carolina boy. His college commitment will play a part in that assertion. Wilson, a recent...

Nervous moments kept tapping Zach Kokoska on the shoulder as he watched names slide across his television screen during the MLB Draft earlier this week. His cellphone sat quiet in his palm. The power-hitting outfielder recalled having similar feelings a year ago during a condensed version of the draft, when...

Tyler Zimmer juggles a busy schedule. The former Penn-Trafford football standout will be an assistant coach at Greensburg Central Catholic this fall, and he also serves as the strength coach for Seton Hill men’s lacrosse and runs Alphalete Performance and Fitness in Export. His athletic background makes all of that...

Marko Thomas took over the Greensburg Central Catholic football program not quite knowing what to expect. But just the same, he was eager to peel back the curtain. He has been pleasantly surprised by his fresh surroundings, quickly establishing a connection with his new team. The coach at Connellsville the...

Two-time defending WPIAL Class A boys soccer champion Greensburg Central Catholic is loaded with talent again, but the team will have a new coach this fall. Tyler Solis resigned after five seasons leading the Centurions. He quickly was replaced, however, by Rob Fabean, his assistant over the last two years....

Jeannette announced its 2021 Jayhawk Athletic Hall of Fame class on Tuesday. The class, selected by the the Jeannette Educational Foundation in conjunction with the school district, will be recognized during a home football game on Sept. 17 against Riverview. A banquet will follow on Sept 18. The latest inductees...

Referring to themselves as the “Tattoo 5,” Terrelle Pryor and four former Ohio State football teammates are asking that their vacated wins be restored, along with their legacy in the program. They want the 2010 season to be wiped clean. In a letter released on social media, Pryor, DeVier Posey,...

The Tribune-Review and the TribLive High School Sports Network are profiling each member of the 25-player Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star team. The players will be recognized July 22 during HSSN Media Day at Kennywood Park. Quinton Martin has scholarship offers from Pitt, Penn State, West Virginia, Rutgers, Virginia Tech...

The broad-shouldered man with a moose on his hat and anti-gravity in his golf drives is just glad he got the phone call. Maybe even more glad that he answered it. Justin Moose was sitting behind a desk in 2018, working as a site manager at a distribution center for...

Unless she takes a summer vacation or a few random days off, Olivia Cernuto gets little rest during the sports year. “A few days here and there,” the rising junior at Southmoreland said. When you play three sports to the level at which Cernuto does, rest is immaterial. Cernuto had...

Almost a year to the day that he was killed in a motorcycle accident, former Jeannette three-sport star athlete Tre Cunningham will be honored through a charity basketball event. The “Tre Cunningham Memorial Basketball Tournament,” sponsored by the Jeannette Educational Foundation, will be July 23-24 at Jeannette High School. Open...

Paul Ajak III and Sean Knapp played in the 36-hole U.S. Amateur qualifier Wednesday at Sunnehanna Country Club in Johnstown, so they were dragging a bit when they teed it up Thursday at the Tri-State Amateur. Their bodies had to catch up with their mental acceleration. “It was really hot...

The Tribune-Review and the TribLive High School Sports Network are profiling each member of the 25-player Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star team. The players will be recognized July 22 during HSSN Media Day at Kennywood Park. Terry Totten wanted to remove some heavy weightlifting platforms from a Central Catholic workout...

Tri-State Amateur golf championship 8 a.m. Thursday, Hannastown Golf Club, Greensburg Format: 36 holes of stroke play. Second round will begin around 1 p.m. Defending champion: Brent Colella Divots: Champions will be recongnized in the amateur and senior amateur divisions. … The event was not played from 2009-19 before it...

Jared Kollar isn’t playing an extra year of college baseball because he has to. The former Latrobe and Seton Hill pitcher is taking advantage of another year of eligibility because he wants to. He would probably take a sixth, seventh, eighth year if he could. Not that he wants that...

Another state championship in hand, the Mt. Pleasant softball team celebrated some personal accolades Tuesday when the all-state teams came out. The Vikings, who finished 21-3 after winning WPIAL and PIAA titles, saw three players make the Pennsylvania High School Softball Coaches Association All-State Teams. Senior pitcher Mary Smithnosky, senior...

One did it with her arm, the other with a heavy bat. A pair of WPIAL standouts led their teams to championships this season and both were lauded for their efforts Tuesday as they were declared two of the state’s best. Beaver junior pitcher Payton List was named the Class...

Former Latrobe star baseball player Ryan Shawley announced he has accepted a grad assistant coaching position at Keiser, a NAIA program that competes in the Sun Conference, formerly known as the Florida Sun Conference. Shawley, who just finished his senior season at Chatham, was a two-way player for the Cougars...

“This close,” Palmer Jackson points out, pinching his index finger and thumb together like he’s holding a SIM card. “I was this close to (automatically qualifying for the U.S. Amateur), but I just missed,” Jackson said of previous summers. “Looking back, I realized I was close a few times.” The...

The Washington Wild Things of the Frontier League added a local name to the roster recently, announcing the signing of former Norwin and Pitt standout Connor Perry. Perry, who most recently played in the minor leagues for the Low-A Lakeland Flying Tigers, also spent the 2019 season with the Gulf...