Bill Beckner stories, Page 148

When she played college softball, AnnaMarie Gatti was known as a drop-ball pitcher, one who could induce ground ball outs to stifle opposing rallies. But now that she has entered the coaching ranks, the former WPIAL star is on the rise. Gatti, an overpowering pitcher at Greensburg Central Catholic before...

Fast-rising basketball talent Aislin Malcolm welcomed another scholarship offer Wednesday as Penn State came calling. Malcolm, a 5-foot-10 guard and two-time WPIAL champion who has not lost a game in her high school career at Chartiers Valley, adds the Nittany Lions to an expanding list of offers. She has others...

A pair of determined athletes are the WPIAL’s latest comeback kids. Multi-sport standout Aidan Bushey of Derry and tennis player Haley Spitznagel of South Park were named recipients of the UPMC Comeback Athlete of the Year awards. Bushey is a recent graduate who will continue his golf career at Cal...

Brooke Cleland is back to doing what she does best on the softball field: launching towering home runs. And she is doing so again in Penn-Trafford green and gold. The rising senior and several of her high school teammates found a way to play some games together after the coronavirus...

Rick Stimmel is known around local golf circles as a steely veteran, someone who has played in USGA championships, bounced around mini tours and ground through qualifiers. His name always seems to surface on the leaderboard. Stimmel added another victory to his resume Monday by winning the 27th Western Pennsylvania...

With each video clip he posted on social media, bulked-up Anthony Giansante shared another step on his path to Division I football. Whether he was lifting weights, jumping rope, or improving footwork and hand technique, he let people follow along, including college coaches who could not meet him in person...

Nate Ward scored goals in soccer, kicked extra points and caught passes in football, hit 3-pointers on the basketball court and carried the baton around the track oval. With each sport, he made his mark. It was like the Greensburg Central Catholic multi-sport athlete had an extra gear and could...

With excessive early commitments in Division I women’s soccer sweeping the country in recent years, the NCAA opted to make a rule change in 2019. Players regularly were committing as freshmen and sophomores. So rising juniors — girls or boys — were not allowed to have contact with Division I...

Lexi Klatt is on the move. The former Southmoreland softball standout is leaving Alderson Broaddus after less than half a season to play closer to home in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference. Klatt, a catcher and outfielder, announced she is transferring to Edinboro. “I was just unhappy there,” the rising...

Freeport’s youth program is as much of a summer tradition at Buffalo Golf Course as outings and leagues. The program, which amounts to a voluntary preseason gathering of high school golfers who are getting ready for the fall season, has been in place since 1993 and has not missed a...

When John Luckhardt retired from Cal U in 2012, he likened his 40-plus-year journey coaching football, which also included a successful stint at Washington & Jefferson, to a “Carnival cruise.” Luckhardt could soon be setting sail toward the elite of college football. He is a candidate for the 2021 College...

The average fastball thrown by pitchers in the opening wave of games in the All-American Baseball Collegiate League popped at 91 mph. That’s about how fast league commissioner Connor Perry has been moving lately to get the newly formed league off the ground. A former Norwin and Pitt standout, Perry...

High school softball is coming back — at least in Beaver County. It may be a permutation of the real thing since the WPIAL season was scratched because of the cornavirus outbreak, but a new league will include many of the same players. A 10-team, unnamed league, the brainchild of...

Robert Morris has itself a championship track and field and cross country coach. Bryan Delsite, hired to lead the women’s teams, has won conference titles as a coach, as well as college, national and international titles as an athlete. A former RMU assistant, Delsite has been an assistant for the...

The plan is temporary, but it is a plan nonetheless. The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee on Monday endorsed a fall recruiting calendar which was devised by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and other collaborators. The outline is meant to reestablish important recruiting dates that had been...

It pains some coaches and fans to think what could have been this season for a number of former WPIAL softball stars playing at the Division I college level. When the coronavirus pandemic showed up early in the spring and put a line through the NCAA softball season, it also...

Doug Kelly has gained a measure of perspective since he last served as a head boys basketball coach in the WPIAL. He has lost loved ones, acquired many friends and listened to words of wisdom, all the while building up to his next venture. “I feel that I am ready....

This year’s MLB Draft, as short and sweet as it was, is in the books. But it is never too early to look ahead to next year. One player to keep an eye on plays at Boston College but has ties to Westmoreland County. Rising junior Sal Frelick, who attended...

Fox Chapel graduate and former WPIAL champion Gregor Meyer shot 3-under-par 67 Monday on his home course to earn medalist honors at an 18-hole Pennsylvania Amateur qualifying tournament. Meyer, a member at host Hannastown Golf Club and a rising sophomore at High Point, made three birdies and one bogey to...

Marshall Richter just finished his sophomore year at Thomas Jefferson, albeit from home like his classmates and many others across the country who were walled off by the coronavirus outbreak. But the future will have the soccer standout on the move, allowing him to stretch his legs again on the...

The holding pattern is over for the Westmoreland County Coaches Association. There will be no 7-on-7 football championship after all. The organization held out hope it could play but on Sunday decided it would be best to cancel the event as health concerns and question marks loom over the coronavirus...

With the NCAA “dead” period — the time when college coaches cannot have contact with potential recruits — extended to July 31, basketball players who usually wade in the AAU recruiting waters at this time of year have been left to their own devices. AAU season has yet to begin,...

Take a six-player core of veteran guys, stir in some newcomers and sprinkle in a dash of talent from four other programs that won’t field teams this summer, and you have the Murrysville senior “Legion” baseball team. Now, subtract the Legion part. “We have some guys that have been with...