Jerin Steele stories, Page 23

Prior to a high-stakes game against North Allegheny on May 4, Pine-Richland baseball coach Kurt Wolfe told his team there would be a playoff-type feel. For starters, a share of the section championship was on the line. Add in a raucous crowd for fan appreciation day at Pine-Richland and the...

Pittsburgh Riverhounds coach Bob Lilley made an adjustment to the formation for Saturday night, moving Danny Griffin from his usual defensive midfield spot into an attacking midfield position. For a year-plus, Griffin has been a stalwart in the lower midfield, but he quickly showed he can make an impact as...

Grant Voytovich didn’t mince words about how his freshman season with Bucknell baseball went. “Last year was pretty bad to be quite honest,” he said. Voytovich, a Pine-Richland grad, started the first 11 games last year and hit .158 before being relegated to the bench for the remainder of the...

The Butler Invitational is the largest regular season track meet in the district and is often a good judge of who will be a threat at the WPIAL championships. Pine-Richland junior Natalie McLean certainly made her presence known at this year’s meet, which was held April 22-23. McLean won the...

The Pittsburgh Riverhounds drew their largest crowd post-pandemic Saturday night, and those in attendance were treated to a sterling performance. Dane Kelly scored twice, and Luis Argudo and Russell Cicerone added a goal each in a 4-0 win for the Riverhounds over Atlanta United 2 in front of 5,202 at...

Natalie Zentz and Alexia Brown both pointed to the bond within the Pine-Richland softball team as one of the factors to their early season success. While the team is close off the field, they’re pulling together between the lines as well. The Rams have been solid in all three phases...

Pine-Richland baseball has a bunch of underclassmen in the lineup, but the Rams also have a lot of fight. Proof of their resilience was on display in a big sweep of Seneca Valley April 12 and 13. It’s not just that they won. It’s how they did it. They earned...

About a month ago Reid Duncan found out that he had made the Pittsburgh Thunderbirds roster, which was a dream come true for the ultimate disc player, but he had to keep it a secret. “When I made it, I was so excited, but I couldn’t tell anybody and it...

Through wind, rain, sleet, snow and cold temperatures, Pine-Richland track and field has powered through the dreadful early spring weather. Team-wise the Rams have achieved some good results with the girls at 2-1 in section dual meets through Wednesday. Individually there’s been some progress as well, and the goal is...

A brief summary of the Pine-Richland boys tennis team’s season so far is that it has been a challenge. Rams coach Dang Siriprasert has had to navigate poor weather that’s led to four match postponements and some canceled practices. There’s also a school band field trip coming that will take...

Alex Hodowanec was close to applying as an assistant for the Pine-Richland girls lacrosse team last season but ended up taking a job coaching club volleyball. A year later, she did apply with the Rams, but this time it was for the head coaching job. Hodowanec, a former standout lacrosse...

Toby Sims saw his name penciled in as a midfielder on the lineup board after Monday’s practice and did a double take. “I was like … I’ve never played that position before,” he said. Sims is a defender by trade, but Riverhounds coach Bob Lilley gave him an opportunity to...

Former Pine-Richland standout Brandon Saad signed a five-year, $22.5 million dollar contract with the St. Louis Blues over the summer and has immediately found his new surroundings to his liking. Saad had 19 goals and 19 assists in 62 games through the end of March. He had five goals and...

Dave Offner was an assistant coach for the Pine-Richland boys lacrosse team for six years, so moving to the head coaching position in 2022 has been fairly seamless. He inherits a team with good depth in each portion of the field and is excited to see how the season unfolds....

It’s not often someone comes off the bench to score two goals in a soccer game, but Dane Kelly isn’t your average substitute. Kelly, the USL Championship’s all-time leading scorer, got a rare night off from the starting eleven, but when he entered in the 60th minute he made a...

Chris Rotelli has been coaching for 25 years and in previous spots he’s had to build a program from the ground up. That’s exactly what he intends to do with Pine-Richland boys volleyball. It’s not going to happen overnight, but with the principles he’s putting in place both on and...

The fourth-grade Pine-Richland girls basketball team is a state champion. The Rams topped Whitpain Recreational Association, 16-12, in the state final March 20 in State College. Pine-Richland went 4-0 at the tournament. They defeated Whitpain in the first round, Chartiers Valley in the quarterfinals and Thomas Jefferson in the semifinals...

Without a senior on the roster, Valley softball managed to break into the playoffs last year for the first time since 2012. The Vikings were 5-9 overall and 5-5 in Section 1-3A. They fell 7-0 to South Allegheny in the first round of the playoffs. Getting to the postseason with...

Valley baseball coach Jim Basilone expects the Section 3-3A race to be exciting, and he is confident his team will be among those competing for the title. The Vikings return five starters from last year’s team that finished 13-8 overall and 6-4 in section play with a win over Mohawk...

Sam Hartsberg has coached travel softball for close to a decade and always had an interest in coaching at the high school level. But first he wanted to watch his daughter, Leah, play at Pine-Richland. When Leah graduated last year, he reached out to then Pine-Richland coach Gary Shepard about...

A rash of injuries to a large senior class last year contributed to a rare playoff absence for the Pine-Richland baseball team. It also allowed some younger players to receive varsity playing time a little earlier than they might have in a normal year, which could prove beneficial for 2022....

Dane Kelly is the all-time leading scorer in USL Championship history, and Kenardo Forbes is the all-time assist leader, but the two switched roles Saturday night. It was Kelly who dropped a pass to Forbes from well outside the 18-yard box, and he launched a rocket shot under the crossbar...

Burrell’s Lydia Flanagan found a groove and rolled to a state title Friday. Flanagan topped Warwick’s Taylor Miller, 223-156, in the championship match of the Pennsylvania girls singles bowling championship at 222 Dutch Lanes in Lancaster. It was the first time a girl from the western region won a girls...

When Aaron Albert started coaching at Beaver six years ago, he had a lineup featuring eight sophomores. That team won a WPIAL championship two years later. Fast forward to present day and Albert finds himself in a similar situation entering his fourth year with the Kiski Area baseball team. The...

John Kinnamon led Apollo-Ridge softball to four consecutive WPIAL playoff appearances, but this year he moved up the Kiskiminetas River a few miles to coach Kiski Area. Kinnamon is a Kiski Area graduate, and he’ll look to improve the softball program like he did when he was with the Vikings....