Bill Beckner stories, Page 25

Elle Snyder School: Latrobe Class: Senior Sport: Basketball Claim to fame: Snyder, a 5-foot-9 guard, announced last week her college commitment to Division I Evansville. She has helped lead the Wildcats to three straight wins, including 54-42 over Penn Hills and 55-24 over Connellsville. Against Penn Hills, she registered 29...

The Landon Sidun era is underway at Norwin. The highly touted freshman wrestler had his “hello, world” moment at one of the toughest tournaments in the country. Sidun won a championship at 114 pounds at the Powerade Tournament. He was named the event’s outstanding wrestler. Sidun (25-1) was carrying the...

Franklin Regional hockey took momentum in the form of a two-game winning streak into the holiday break. The Panthers followed a 5-3 victory over Bishop McCort with a 6-3 win against Armstrong to move to 6-3-0-1 on the season. Matt Rutkowski had a hat trick and an assist against Armstrong,...

Three Jeannette football legends are among 60 nominees for the National High School Football Hall of Class of 2024. Former coach Joe Mucci and star players Dick Hoak and Terrelle Pryor are on the ballot for the second hall class. Mucci also was nominated last year. They are among impressive...

Greensburg Central Catholic players and coaches were stranded after the game at Jeannette on Friday night because their bus arrived late. About 30 minutes went by as the team waited in an empty gym. Some players practiced a tip drill, and others played 1-on-1. “Most of them just sat in...

“North is North,” Greensburg Salem girls basketball coach Rick Klimchock said in a back hallway at North Catholic after his team fell behind early and dropped a 62-35 decision to the host Trojanettes in a matchup of Class 4A top-five girls basketball teams Thursday night on Barth & Graham Court....

Doug Kelly was feeling nostalgic and sentimental as he was time-warped back to his high school days at Elkins (W.Va.) during a recent visit to his old stomping grounds. Kelly, the boys basketball coach at Penn-Trafford, took his team south to play Elkins, a 2A school that plays in the...

Because of some injuries, first-year boys basketball coach Annie Malkowiak said her Mt. Pleasant team had to take a next-man-up approach. That is an advisory from the first woman up. Malkowiak is adjusting to life as the first woman to coach a boys varsity basketball team in Westmoreland County and...

From its worst start of the season to nearly its best finish, Southmoreland had an up and down kind of night. Then again, so did Belle Vernon, which basically experienced the opposite by opening with a flash and then sputtering to the finish line in the Section 3-4A boys basketball...

Franklin Regional girls basketball coach Bernie Pucka and his players are being kept in suspense. On Jan. 15, doctors may determine if senior point guard Angelina Brush can come back to the lineup. Brush has yet to play a game this season, and her absence has weighed heavily on a...

Girls basketball practice is over — so says the clock — but parents sit idle in their vehicles outside of the Hempfield Spartan Field House, waiting to fill their backseats with tired daughters. Ten minutes go by. Then 15. Then 20. Finally, players begin filing out. “I don’t make them...

Franklin Regional has a pilot light that burns brightly and ignites the Panthers’ fast-paced attack. Coach Jesse Reed never wants to see that light burn out, but he wants to temper it. Why? Because he loves his team’s fire. It’s just a matter of when to crank up the heat....

An assistant football coach from Southern Cal flew across the country recently to meet with coveted Latrobe prospect Alex Tatsch. The coach covered 4,916 miles round trip, just to meet with the junior four-star linebacker. “Schools really like him,” Latrobe football coach Ron Prady said. “We have more coming in,...

When Mike Shanahan was at Pitt, he played in the Big East. Now, he will coach in the Big Ten. Shanahan, a former Norwin standout wide receiver who played tight end in college, is following head coach Curt Cignetti to Indiana. Shanahan, 34, will be the Hoosiers’ offensive coordinator and...

During a WPIAL playoff game last month Quinton Martin hurdled a defender on his way to a first down, but no penalty was called. Maybe such an athletic move had become expected of Martin, even by the officials. His highlight film is one breakaway rush or catch-and-go after another, each...

Sharp-shooting senior basketball player Elle Snyder of Latrobe announced Saturday a verbal commitment to NCAA Division I Evansville. Snyder, a 5-foot-9 guard, is Latrobe’s leading scorer (18.5 points per game) and rebounder (12.3). She had a 36-point game earlier this season and has produced eight double-doubles. She plays AAU basketball...

Mya Morgan School: Greensburg Central Catholic Class: Senior Sport: Basketball Claim to fame: Morgan, a 5-foot-9 shooting guard, scored her 1,000th career point Wednesday in GCC’s 44-35 victory over Canon-McMillan at the Hoopfest at Cal (Pa.). She had 13 points in that game, then matched that total Thursday in a...

Football, swimming, wrestling, track and field, softball, golf, tennis, bowling and cheerleading. Westmoreland County teams and athletes had a propensity for winning championships in an array of sports, and that became their collective calling card in 2023. It was a run of titles to remember, and the winners highlight the...

Up nine and then down six in a game where no lead was safe, budding Hempfield relied on its defense and late-game aptitude to score arguably its best win of the season. Using a lengthy second-half run to regain the lead, Hempfield pulled past Indiana, 50-42, on Friday night in...

The basketball went to the near corner. Sophomore point guard Erica Gribble drew a crowd of defenders and alertly fired a pass across the baseline to the far corner. There waiting was senior shooting guard Mya Morgan, who caught it and sent in a 3-pointer to give Class 2A No....

If Greensburg Central Catholic is going to live up to its expectations and make another run in the WPIAL and PIAA Class 2A boys basketball playoffs, the steady contributions of role players could be what makes the difference. So far, the rotation has been much more than the outstanding senior...

The annual Shootout at Seton Hill basketball showcase has expanded. It will include more days, more games and more teams. The charity event will be Jan. 27-28 at Seton Hill’s McKenna Center and now has 22 teams and 11 games (8 boys, 3 girls). Previously, the showcase was one day...

As Greensburg Central Catholic went through the handshake line opposite Yough, Centurions coach Christian Hyland told Cougars guard Terek Crosby how much he appreciates his game. The gesture was not a postgame apology Wednesday afternoon, but it felt like one. The coach was explaining why his team uncharacteristically used a...

Greensburg Salem is set to honor the team that felt invincible for a couple of weeks in March. The 2009 Golden Lions, who went 23-6 and made a surprising run to the PIAA Class AAA championship game, will be recognized before Thursday night’s finale of the eight-game Coach Paul Sapotichne...

Before the season began, Greensburg Central Catholic girls basketball coach Chris Skatell talked almost proudly about his team’s schedule, confident that the Centurions had the talent to handle it. “We want to see what their will to compete looks like,” Skatell said as he went down the list of opponents....