Michael Love stories, Page 20

The Highlands and Hampton boys basketball teams played nine times over the past four seasons, including a third time last year in the quarterfinals of the WPIAL Class 4A playoffs. Bradyn Foster, the Golden Rams’ 6-foot-8 senior center, knows all about what it was like in those bruising battles with...

The Plum softball team rallied from the first inning on during last Friday’s nonsection home game against Highlands at Plum High School The Golden Rams led 2-0 after one inning, 4-1 in the third and 6-2 in the fourth. Despite some adversity, which included an uncharacteristic six errors, the Mustangs...

Highlands graduate Jaycee Haidze is having a strong early season for the IUP softball team. The sophomore right-handed pitcher and infielder earned PSAC Western Division Athlete of the Week for softball after hitting .524 (11 of 21) in seven games last week. She totaled four doubles, two home runs and...

Last year, the Allegheny Badgers Tier II 16U boys ice hockey team won the Mid-Am District title, advanced to nationals in Amherst, N.Y., and brought home third place in the 3A bracket. Seventeen of the 20 players from that team remained together and moved up to the 18U level. The...

A couple of teams in Class 3A changed positions as the Western Pennsylvania Volleyball Coaches Association released its Week 3 Top-10 polls and Players of the Week on Monday morning. Shaler remained in the top spot, followed by North Allegheny, Seneca Valley, Norwin and Penn-Trafford rounding out the top five....

Six of seven starters returned from last year’s Gateway boys tennis team which captured the program’s first WPIAL title since 1988 and made it all the way to the PIAA Class 3A semifinals. Team members also fared well at the WPIAL and state singles tournaments. Despite all of the laurels...

The final Gateway swim in the final event of the final day of the PIAA swimming championships at Bucknell University resulted in a podium finish and a state medal. The Gator girls 400-yard freestyle relay of freshman Aliya Rassiane, senior Mallory Brown, sophomore Gianna Laurenti and senior McKenna Brown swam...

Player of the Year Julie Spinelli 5-11, Sr., G, St. Joseph The St. Joseph girls basketball team took several steps forward in the 2023-24 season and met or surpassed goals and expectations set for themselves at the start in late November. Two of the goals were met on a single...

Riverview senior pitcher and infielder Jack Loughren is an island unto himself in that he’s the only senior on a youthful Raiders baseball team. The team’s senior day ceremony will be brief. But Loughren is not alone in terms of players in the lineup who have varsity experience. Eight seniors...

Plum was the only WPIBL program to have both its boys and girls bowling teams qualify for the Pennsylvania state championships. The Mustangs’ representation at Leisure Lanes in Lancaster on March 16 was the destination of a journey that took the squads through the WPIBL and Western Regional tournaments. But...

For the second time in less than two years, Plum is looking for a new boys basketball coach. Justin Walther tendered his resignation last month, and it was accepted by the district. Athletic director Drew Karpen said Wednesday that in a short time after the position was advertised, there were...

Sydney Selker wasn’t accustomed to sitting out a softball game, no matter at what level. But that is where the Akron commit found herself for the last eight games of Freeport’s 2023 season. A concussion suffered against Knoch in a defensive collision with a teammate in the 10th game last...

The Plum softball team’s season debut against Ligonier Valley on Friday was, in the eyes of the coaches and players, not their best outing. But the Mustangs shook off the loss and rebounded in all three phases Monday at home against Derry. The Plum offense collected eight hits, and the...

Shaler captured the Meadville Tournament championship Saturday, and the victory strengthened the Titans’ hold on the No. 1 spot in the latest Western Pennsylvania Volleyball Coaches Association Class 3A poll released Monday morning. North Allegheny battled state power Central York in the semifinals finals of Saturday’s North Allegheny Tournament. Despite...

Lee Yong Ok rose to the top of her chosen sport in her native South Korea. She worked her way up the ranks in women’s volleyball, and her work paid off to where she was selected to play in and represent her country for the 1988 Olympic Summer Games in...

WPIAL swimmers brought home six more PIAA Class 2A state championships Saturday evening to cap a highly successful two-day meet at Bucknell University. North Catholic junior Luke Lamb won his second individual crown in as many days with a victory in the boys 100-yard backstroke, while Mt. Pleasant junior Joseph...

Knoch junior Giona Lavorini bested rival Peyton Scott, a junior from Indiana, for the WPIAL Class 2A title March 1 at Pitt’s Trees Pool. Scott then got the better of Lavorini at a YMCA district meet last weekend. But Lavorini was back on top Saturday evening in the finals of...

The Mt. Pleasant girls 400-yard freestyle relay of Lainey Brown, Maddie Barrick, Riley Shinsky and Lily King took fifth (3 minutes, 36.90 seconds) in the championship heat Friday night at Kinney Natatorium at Bucknell University. The 28 points the relay earned capped another strong day for the Lady Vikings and...

LEWISBURG — Hampton sophomore Gabby Elk sat in fifth place after the second round of dives Saturday afternoon at the PIAA Class 2A championships at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium. But she made a final push over the final three dives, scoring 121.40 points to move to second in the final...

LEWISBURG — Day 2 of the PIAA Class 2A swimming championship Saturday morning at Bucknell University brought more fast times from WPIAL swimmers, and they will be well-featured in this evening’s championship heats in the 100-yard freestyle, 500 free, 100 backstroke, 100 breaststroke and 400 free relay. Girls Mt. Pleasant...

Mike Tongel wrestled at the PIAA Class AAA tournament as a senior in 1984. He went 4-1 at 155 pounds and took third place overall. Forty years to the week, his son, Jack, a senior at Plum and a Pitt commit, took his first steps onto a wrestling mat at...

Indiana’s Preston Kessler knows nothing but PIAA championships in the Class 2A boys 200-yard freestyle. The junior freestyle specialist won his third state title Friday evening with a time of 1 minute, 38.57 seconds. While it wasn’t his best time in the event – he swam a 1:38.26 at WPIALs...

WPIAL individual swimmers and relays captured nine out of a possible 12 state titles on the first day of the PIAA Class 2A championships Friday at Bucknell University. Mt. Pleasant claimed six of the nine and added a state record to the program portfolio. Junior David Mutter was a big...

Leah Shackley is fast. Very fast. The senior from Bedford in District 6 has owned the PIAA Class 2A girls 100-yard butterfly for the past several seasons and came into this year’s meet as the state record holder. She crushed her own record in the finals Friday night at Bucknell...

Blackhawk senior Brecken Finkbeiner and Derry junior Jacob Hauser finished 1-2 at the WPIAL Class 2A diving championships Feb. 23 at North Allegheny. The standout duo, both diving at the PIAA championships for the third time, led the seven-diver WPIAL contingent Friday afternoon at Bucknell University’s Kinney Nataorium. Finkbeiner captured...