Bill Beckner stories, Page 49

Yough secured a WPIAL playoff berth after an 11-1, run-ruled victory over Mt. Pleasant on Tuesday on Cougar Mountain. The Cougars moved to 11-3 overall and 8-0 in Section 4-3A with their fourth straight win. It also marked their fourth two-game sweep of the season in the section. Other county...

A perk of winning a state championship in Pennsylvania is the recognition that comes with it from the state government. Pro teams that win titles go to the White House. PA teams head to Harrisburg. The Belle Vernon football team was honored Wednesday with a trip to the state Capitol,...

Backlit by an error-free performance from her defense, senior pitcher Carli Ramchandran put together one of the better outings of her career against a strong lineup. It led to a 4-1 victory over Latrobe that was crisp, sound and necessary for the Franklin Regional softball team. Ramchandran threw a two-hitter...

Greensburg Salem had to play two recent softball games with only 11 players because of a rash of injuries. The Golden Lions (6-7, 3-5) have dealt with a concussion, a jaw issue and an upper-body injury as a result of a hit batter, all in recent games. Still, they remained...

Luke Williams hits the baseball and makes plays in the field with a maturity beyond his years. His coach, Bobby Saddler, called him “the real deal.” The Franklin Regional shortstop is only a freshman, but he already has his sights on a Division I playing career. Williams announced Wednesday a...

It was like a strange but lucid dream. The field was closing in. The dimensions were shrinking. The fence was so close, he felt like he could reach out and touch it. And that high-pitched yelling in the dugout: What was that all about? Tommy Quealy wasn’t hallucinating. He was...

Seton Hill looks to be playing some of its best softball late in the season. The Griffins ran their winning streak to nine with a doubleheader sweep of Pitt-Johnstown on Thursday to move to 24-12 overall and 17-5 in the PSAC West. Junior Brooke Cleland (Penn-Trafford) went 2 for 4...

Latrobe softball players stayed as positive as they could, for as long as they could, still believing they could stage a rally as a cold wind whipped across the field. “We’re not done, yet,” the girls repeated in the dugout. “We got this.” Coach Bob Kovalcin loved his team’s teeth-chattering...

If defense wins championships, it might be a good time for Seton Hill to start shopping ring-fitters. The Griffins baseball team has a dragnet defense that is keeping opposing offenses off the field and smothering rallies. Through 37 games, Seton Hill was ranked sixth in the country in NCAA Division...

Norwin’s Jackson Pons will continue his football career at Ben Roethlisberger’s alma mater. Only he will be playing on the defensive side of the ball. Pons announced Sunday his commitment to Miami (Ohio) of the Mid-American Conference, where he will line up at safety. The stress of the recruiting game...

Playing in front of his team’s home fans last year in the U.S. Open Cup, Auston Kranick sought reaffirmation and comfort in his surroundings. Was this really happening? Had his lifelong dream of playing professional soccer actually come true? The Flower City Football Club player took in the scenery and...

Maybe it has something to do with nets. Playing two sports in the same season is challenging enough, but how about two in one day? Latrobe senior Josh Havrilla made it happen last Tuesday. In the frigid afternoon, he joined teammate August Lawrence in the championship match of the Section...

Gionnah Ruffner School: Greensburg Salem Class: Junior Sport: Softball Claim to fame: Ruffner, a center fielder, is helping to keep the Golden Lions in the playoff race in WPIAL Section 2-4A. She went 4 for 5 with a double, triple and three runs in a 12-3 win over Laurel Highlands....

The Norwin boys track and field team finished second and the girls were third at the Lady Spartan/Wildcat Invitational at Latrobe. Ashley Laukus won the high jump with a mark of 5 feet, 3 inches, while Nataiah Robertson-Dutrieuille captured the long jump in 16-11.25, and Hannah Shaw won the pole...

Franklin Regional softball players might not come out and admit it, but they had two section games circled on their calendars since the start of the season. Those games were against Armstrong, the WPIAL Class 5A champion and PIAA runner-up who has placed in the Panthers’ section this year. Franklin...

After the softball game ended, Ciara Camacho scooped up her puppy, “Chubbs,” and cradled him as she headed for the family vehicle. The friendly “Frug,” a French Bulldog and Pug mix, fussed a little bit, but his owner secured him tightly. Camacho, Franklin Regional’s sophomore catcher and leadoff hitter, also...

He wasn’t in a slump by any means, but Greensburg Salem junior first baseman Grant Smith wanted desperately to snap back after a sub-par effort in the first game of a Section 4-3A baseball series against McGuffey. Collectively, so did the Golden Lions, who had an eight-game winning streak stopped...

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he used to be a pitcher, or that he enjoys the chess-match nature of the new three-game series in WPIAL Class 6A baseball. “The thing that really gets you is how, when you go home after a game, you have...

There was some “Buzz” around Hempfield last week. Spartans’ coach Tim Buzzard recorded a milestone win when the Spartans blanked Baldwin, 10-0, for a three-game sweep. The victory was No. 200 of his career. Buzzard is in his 15th season leading Hempfield. He is 200-114 overall. Tourney time Latrobe likes...

Hempfield is back on track. Though the Spartans are not out to assign blame for a loss to Norwin earlier this week that could strip them of their No. 1 ranking — more credit goes to Norwin’s hitters — they were willing to shake things up a bit to right...

Latrobe senior left fielder Hayden Kraynick has found her groove at the plate. She has been on an offensive tear lately for the Wildcats (9-1, 4-1), who have been piling up runs and have the look of a WPIAL contender in Class 5A. Latrobe scored 39 times in its last...

Gradually, it all started to come back for Alyssa McCormick. The movement. The rhythm. The velocity. And don’t forget the most important part: the wins. The Norwin senior stepped back into the pitching circle after spending last year in the outfield. Offseason work had her sharp and ready to deliver...

With an extra year of eligibility, it was just a matter of time before Bailey Parshall took over the Penn State softball record book. That time came Tuesday in University Park. They call her “Queen B” but Parshall is more like “Queen K.” The fifth-year pitcher broke two program records,...

Clarion senior Jenna Uncapher (Hempfield) and sophomore Leah Perry (Derry) competed in the heptathlon at the Messiah Multi. Uncapher opened the Messiah Multi with a fifth-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 15.89 seconds. She tied for fourth in the high jump (1.50 meters) and won the...

Norwin took it personally last year when Hempfield issued four intentional walks in a WPIAL Class 6A softball quarterfinal loss. The Knights made Hempfield pay for it when the Spartans tried it again. In the teams’ first meeting since the playoffs, Alyssa McCormick launched a grand slam in the third...