Josh Rizzo stories, Page 16

The Penn Hills wrestling program will be in a year of transition. The Indians bring back four wrestlers — Cameron Patterson (139 pounds), Julian Lavender (133), Daemon Phipps (114) and Levi Smith (127) — who saw significant time last season. All four finished with double-digit wins, but none escaped the...

Jonna Burke feels fortunate to have the assistant coaching staff she does with the Shady Side Academy girls basketball program. It’s made it easier for the Bulldogs to deal with the fallout from a one-year suspension levied on the coach in July. A federal judge has granted Burke an injunction...

Bumping up to Class 2A hasn’t been too harsh on the Fox Chapel hockey team. While the Foxes aren’t as dominant as their team that made a run to the Penguins Cup final, Fox Chapel is in a good position for another playoff run. The Foxes are off to a...

Things will be decidedly different for the Penn Hills swimming team this season. When the Indians start the season, Penn Hills will have its home meets at the Olympic Swim & Health Club instead of the school’s pool at Linton Middle School. The pool has had maintenance issues since last...

Rachel Fairbanks doesn’t know what changed. Or even when the momentum shifted. But Fairbanks, the junior setter for the Pitt women’s volleyball team, doesn’t want to see the Panthers start another match slowly. Pitt fell behind first-time NCAA Tournament participant Coppin State by four points in the first set before...

Gail Murphy watched Katie Livingston battle through a back injury during her senior season to play for the Denison women’s soccer program. When Livingston, a Fox Chapel graduate, was named to the North Coast Athletic Conference All-Decade team, it was a fact that made Murphy proud. “Those coaches for her...

There will be plenty of decisions for Michael Frank and the Fox Chapel wrestling program to make this season. Frank has a wrestling room with plenty of available bodies to help the Foxes’ program continue to show improvement. Fox Chapel has 45 boys out for the team this year from...

Robert Cash doesn’t want the Penn Hills girls basketball team to take its foot off the gas. Last season, the Indians found a way to turn around their fortunes. Penn Hills returned to the postseason after batting through a ferocious race in Section 1-5A. The Indians lost in the first...

Chris Giles doesn’t need to look at the returning players or incoming freshmen to know what the plan is. The veteran Penn Hills boys basketball coach is going to focus on the fundamentals. While this year’s version of the Indians will be missing key pieces from their WPIAL Class 5A...

Louis Ryan was sporting a gray 1997 WPIAL football championship cutoff shirt that had clearly seen better days. The shirt was worn down by sweat and age, but the Fort Cherry middle linebacker wore his dad’s old shirt as a reminder of what they were working toward. Ryan and the...

South Side football coach Luke Travelpiece can see the Rams’ battle for the WPIAL Class A championship against Fort Cherry going many ways. Both teams have explosive offenses. Those offenses are complimented by tremendous defenses. “Both teams average more than 40 points a game,” Travelpiece said. “I think you’re going...

Penn Hills senior Landon Hankey had to tough out playing two sports during his senior season. The Indians boys soccer team’s senior goalkeeper struggled to stay on the field. However, he was able to grind it out and find a way to play as much as possible in both football...

Shaler boys basketball coach Rob Niedeberger has always prided himself on having depth in his program. This season, the Titans had more than a solid foundation to build on. Shaler will bring back the top eight players from its rotation last season. Six of those players go straight from hanging...

Hanna DeJidas still thinks about the Shaler girls basketball team’s loss in the first round of the WPIAL Class 5A playoffs. The Titans became one of the WPIAL’s top defensive teams last season by utilizing bungee cords in practice so the entire team knew how to move and work together....

The solitude of shooting basketballs with a machine in her family’s garage was a welcome environment for Fox Chapel senior guard Skylar Byrnes. Finding a way to push herself through workouts isn’t something Byrnes has struggled to find motivation to do. It’s the culture with which she is familiar. Her...

Fox Chapel’s Will Siegel believes the Foxes should have lofty goals for the WPIAL Class 5A playoffs. Last season’s postseason run proved Fox Chapel is capable of accomplishing good things when it is playing good basketball. The Foxes made the PIAA playoffs as the fifth seed out of the WPIAL....

Franklin Regional junior Toryn Fulton doesn’t want to see the Panthers’ girls basketball program run out of gas. All offseason, Fulton and her teammates have been looking to make sure they have the legs to keep up with the challenges that lay ahead. “We need to compete at the same...

Cam Rowell was worried he didn’t quite have the spring in his step anymore. The 6-foot-4 Franklin Regional senior forward suffered a hip flexor injury that kept him out for most of last season. After four months off, Rowell said it took about a month of playing in games before...

Daemar Kelly was on the court for the Quinnipiac men’s basketball season opener Nov. 6. The Bobcats destroyed Coast Guard, 116-48, to open the season. Kelly, a freshman guard, contributed 17 minutes off the bench, scored seven points, grabbed two rebounds and had two assists. Kelly also made the first...

Charles Morris had to wait until his second season to coach his first playoff game as the Penn Hills football coach. The Indians’ performance left quite the impression on anyone who saw it. Penn Hills blasted Penn-Trafford, 63-28, in the WPIAL Class 5A quarterfinals. It was the first time the...

North Allegheny quarterback Logan Kushner won a foot race four plays into Friday night’s WPIAL Class 6A semifinal playoff game at Wright Field. The 71-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-1 was a risk that paid off big time for the Tigers. North Allegheny gained the early lead and coasted to a...

Fox Chapel senior Rowan Gwin looked forward to mentoring junior teammate Drew Black at the PIAA Class 4A cross country championships in Hershey. If anyone had the requisite experience for helping a first-time runner out, it was Gwin, who was making his third trip and had a wide range of...

Fox Chapel’s underdog run through the WPIAL Class 4A postseason wasn’t just the result of an October victory. The Foxes blazing a path to the championship game at Highmark Stadium started by challenging one another during training camp in August. Those battles continued through routine practices in September or any...

Sawyer Kinney has been drawn to activities throughout his life that made him feel like he was joining a brotherhood. When the Penn Hills senior thought about what he would like post-college life to be like, he was drawn to a military career the same way he was drawn to...

The Penn Hills football team was crowned “King of the Hills’ by beating Woodland Hills to end the regular season. The winner of the game being awarded a trophy caught Indians coach Charles Morris off guard. It wasn’t the trophy Penn Hills was ultimately after, but the Indians were happy...