High School category, Page 1171
New Pine-Richland boys soccer coach Wiegand prepares for season
Jordan Wiegand spent his high school years playing soccer for North Hills, and now he will lead one of his alma mater’s biggest rivals as he is preparing to enter his first season at the helm of the Pine-Richland boys soccer team. Wiegand replaces longtime Rams coach Jon Connor, who...
Herald spotlight athlete: Shady Side Academy’s Adam Lauer
Adam Lauer, a junior on the Shady Side Academy golf team, is hoping to help lead the Indians to their third straight section title. They have also made it to the WPIAL finals two years in a row. Lauer led the team in low stroke average as a freshman and...
Signal Item boys soccer preview: After playoff seasons, teams look to take next step
The boys soccer teams at Chartiers Valley, Carlynton and Bishop Canevin started the 2018 season with the goal of making the playoffs. Mission accomplished. But the other thing they had in common was a first-round exit. The teams open 2019 hoping to better that performance. A brief look at each:...
Hampton’s Schepner: Hines Ward Positive Athlete Award ‘pretty special’
Hampton junior Hannah Schepner found out she won the Hines Ward Positive Athlete Award this spring, but her journey started at age 13 during one of her career’s lowest moments. At a gymnastics competition in Philadelphia, she fell awkwardly during a dismount, breaking her ankle in several places. At first,...
Hampton’s Fridley Field renovations near completion
Anyone near Fridley Field in Hampton lately may have noticed construction. By the time fall sports roll around in a month, it will have the look and feel of a new outdoor facility. The field turf will be new, as well as the track. Additionally, the scoreboard will be changing...
Derry chooses Brisbane as girls basketball coach
Derry athletic director Brett Miller was looking for a difference-maker to coach the girls basketball team. He feels he found that person in former Hempfield coach Gene Brisbane. The Derry school board voted 6-0 to hire Brisbane on Thursday. “I can honestly say that Gene is my best hire,” Miller...
WPIAL football recruits share their written scholarship offers as August arrives
The first day of August is the date each year that college football coaches can send written scholarship offers to high school seniors. The official offers began arriving just after midnight Thursday and WPIAL recruits quickly took to social media. Here’s a look at some of the announcements shared online....
Bill Fralic Award to recognize WPIAL’s top lineman
The late Bill Fralic was never one for attention. But the mountain of a football player, who blocked and tackled better than most at Penn Hills and Pitt before a pro career he spent mostly with the Atlanta Falcons, enjoyed being able to make a difference in the lives of...
Book about West Allegheny soccer, ‘Unbeatable’ gains popularity in first month of release
The 2018 West Allegheny boys soccer season was a storybook-type campaign. It was so good in fact that Brent Dragisich, the father of Nathan and Johnny Dragisic, two West A players, decided to author a book about their extraordinary season. “My wife first brought it up to me to do...
Like his older brother, Seton LaSalle’s Dom Popa commits to Pitt baseball
Seton LaSalle’s Dom Popa, whose brother stars for Pitt, committed Monday to also play baseball for the Panthers. The younger brother is a rising senior who batted .470 for the Rebels, who went 21-3 and won the WPIAL Class 2A title this past spring. The outfielder led his team in...
Gateway transfer Diego Bledsoe remains ineligible over father’s critical comments
The PIAA listened to critical public comments made by Diego Bledsoe’s father and then upheld a WPIAL decision that leaves the Gateway transfer ineligible to play football. Bledsoe, a rising junior who transferred from Steel Valley, had a PIAA hearing Tuesday in Mechanicsburg. The WPIAL had ruled Bledsoe ineligible June...
George Guido: 40-second play clock ‘most substantial’ new rule in H.S. football
The implementation of a 40-second play clock is the most significant change to high school football this season. It’s one of seven rules revisions recommended by the National Federation of State High School Associations and approved by the NFHS Board of Directors. The 40-second clock for the next play will...
PIAA overturns suspension levied against Central Catholic coach Brian Urso
The PIAA overturned a WPIAL decision and lifted the suspension given to Central Catholic boys basketball coach Brian Urso. While investigating recruiting allegations, the WPIAL board in June ordered Central Catholic to suspend the first-year coach for one scrimmage and two regular-season games for contacting eighth-grade athletes. But Central Catholic’s...
WPIAL duo helps Pennsylvania sweep Maryland in Big 26 Baseball Classic
Pennsylvania swept past Maryland in a three-game series over the weekend at the Big 26 Baseball Classic in Maryland, and WPIAL products Jarrett Heilman and Ryan McGuire contributed to the triumphs. Pennsylvania, which lost two of three to Maryland in the 2018 series, collected 30 runs over the three games,...
PIAA overturns WPIAL, makes West Mifflin football standout Nahki Johnson eligibleVideo
The recruiting allegations made against Nahki Johnson and coach Rod Steele were “unsubstantiated,” the PIAA decided Tuesday, so it ruled the West Mifflin football standout immediately eligible. Johnson, a Pitt recruit and one of the WPIAL’s top rising junior, was ruled ineligible last month by the WPIAL, but that decision...
Derry’s Adams, Ligonier Valley’s Spiker pull in offers from St. Francis (Pa.)
Like the big boys themselves, Division I college interest in area linemen keeps growing in size. St. Francis (Pa.) is following suit with a number of other FCS schools in the market for front-line talent by making inroads to Westmoreland County programs. Two more local players received scholarship offers this...
Springdale girls soccer hopes new coach is a hit
A lot of hit songs have come out of Liverpool, England. Bands like the Beatles, A Flock of Seagulls and 1980’s sensation Rick Astley all claim the city as home. Springdale’s betting it found the next big hit in new girls soccer coach and Liverpool native Marc Bentley as the...
Clairton, McGuffey schedule Week 1 football game
Left idle by forfeits, McGuffey and Clairton will have Week 1 football games after all. The two teams announced Monday that they will play one another Aug. 30 at McGuffey. Kickoff is 7 p.m. McGuffey was left without a Week 1 game when Northgate announced last week that it would...
Aliquippa linebacker Zuriah Fisher sets commitment dateVideo
Aliquippa’s Zuriah Fisher hasn’t picked his college but the star linebacker did set a commitment date. The rising senior will commit Aug. 5, he said Sunday on Twitter. Fisher lists nearly two dozen FBS offers. His most recent came last month from Texas A&M. He also has Pitt, Penn State...
Powerade field adds nationally ranked team
When Canon-McMillan athletic director and Powerade Tournament director Frank Vulcano announced the 2019 holiday wrestling tournament field in June, he said he was still hoping to add one of the top teams in the country. He did when perennial private school power Wyoming Seminary agreed to come to the Dec....
Alabama, rarely seen around WPIAL, offers Gateway junior Derrick Davis
Joe Namath starred there in the 1960s and Robert Foster picked Alabama earlier this decade, but Crimson Tide football offers don’t appear all that often in the WPIAL. Saturday, one arrived. Gateway’s Derrick Davis announced a scholarship offer from Alabama, adding to the rising junior’s status as one of Pennsylvania’s...
North Catholic’s Kylee Lewandowski commits to Richmond
North Catholic’s Kylee Lewandowski, one of the WPIAL’s top rising seniors, committed Saturday to Richmond. The 6-foot-1 guard had more than a dozen offers. She chose the Spiders over offers from Bryant, Bucknell, Denver, Fairfield, Fordham, Hartford, Marshall, Miami (Ohio), Niagara, Quinnipiac, Xavier and Western Michigan. Lewandowski announced her decision...
Darren Rogers starred on, off the field at Quaker Valley
Darren Rogers starred on the track, basketball court, football field and in the classroom while attending Quaker Valley. Despite graduating in 2006, Rogers will add more honors to his storied high school career when he joins the Quaker Valley Sports Hall of Fame on Sept. 29 at a ceremony at...
Pine-Richland’s Tommy Beam: WVU ‘really fit my personality’
While Pine-Richland baseball player Tommy Beam is only halfway through his high school career, he decided he did not need the next two years to deliberate on his college plans. The Rams standout pitcher cemented his college decision July 5 when he announced on Twitter he had committed to play...
After narrowly missing out on postseason, Baldwin football is motivated
The Baldwin football team is highly motivated. Moreso than most. The Fighting Highlanders’ 2018 season ended with a bitter taste, as they missed out on a WPIAL Class 5A playoff berth by one game. They are laser-focused on advancing to the postseason this fall. “We have been doing just about...
