Shawn Annarelli stories, Page 2

There’s a cure for the bittersweet emotions Pine-Richland felt last November at the PIAA cross country championships. The Rams were excited to support junior Meredith Price and sophomore Natalie McLean at states, but dissatisfied with placing fourth at WPIALs, one spot shy of girls team qualifying for the meet. They...

With Villanova commit Megan Donnelly leading the offense, four-year starting goaltender Katherine Kelly in net and nearly a full cast of returning starters, Pine-Richland feels good about its chances to build on last season’s playoff appearance. Their new coach, Rachelle Dixon, also has them thinking positively. “Coming into a new...

For all of the growing pains Pine-Richland endured a year ago, the team showed just as much promise during coach Jordan Wiegand’s first season. The Rams believe they can be contenders, but know they can’t have a slow start like last season’s 1-4 section record, a hole too big to...

Tears formed at the corners of Alex Smith’s eyes. A typically stoic bowler, he was overcome with emotion as he readied himself for one of the biggest throws in his career. “Honestly, there’s usually nothing going through my mind in those moments other than I know what I need to...

The packed arena will be filled for the biggest tournament of Calahan Young’s career, and everyone watching will be on the edge of their seats to find out who scores next. The only catch is the players won’t witness any goals or diving saves. That’s because they are all legally...

Rachel Blackburn needs infield work, and she knows it. An IUP commit for swimming, she has to compete in her last races Saturday at the PIAA championships before she can begin to field grounders and turn double plays Sunday. There is a sense of urgency to get caught up with...

Highlands wasn’t halfway through its Sunday baseball practice, and sophomore Tanner Nulph already was talking to teammates about staying late. Sure enough, when practice ended, coach Jeff Campbell still had a bat in his hands and continued to hit ground balls to the left side of the infield. Nulph and...

Patrick Cutchember School: Quaker Valley Sport: Wrestling Class: Sophomore Claim to fame: Patrick Cutchember capped off Quaker Valley’s wrestling season with a seventh-place finish at 182 pounds and a trip to the podium at states. He won three of his five matches, and his only losses, one of which was...

JJ Jardini School: Sewickley Academy Sport: Basketball Class: Junior Claim to fame: JJ Jardini draws inspiration from plenty of sources. Three years ago, it was watching her cousin Maddie Simpson win the WPIAL championship with Chartiers-Houston. This season, it was with her younger sister on the team. And sometimes she...

Derry’s softball team will embark on a new era with first-year coach John DePalma at the helm. He has coached about half of the roster on traveling teams and wants to increase expectations around the program, which has lost in the first round of the playoffs for three consecutive seasons...

Batting .350 and receiving all-section honors would be nice, but a section championship is at the top of Austin Siko’s wish list. Siko, the only senior on Derry’s baseball team, said he believes the Trojans are ready to contend after two losing seasons. “I 100 percent feel we can do...

Gavin Ellwood ran to his coaches, Chris Hartman and Mike Enick, beaming with excitement at the Pennsylvania Junior Wrestling Area III tournament. He told them he completed his goal sheet, a list of three objectives he set for himself at the beginning of the season, the last of which was...

Quaker Valley senior Austin Pantaleo’s fourth wrestling injury in five years nearly sidelined him from the sport for good. Instead, it put Pantaleo and sophomore Patrick Cutchember on an intertwining path to be the only Quakers to qualify for the PIAA tournament. Cutchember placed second at 182 pounds in regionals,...

In a season when Quaker Valley won its second consecutive section championship and earned its first PIAA playoff berth, Quakers coach Mike Heinl told his team he wanted more. Senior Donovan Cutchember answered the call Feb. 15 with the program’s fourth individual WPIAL championship in three years. “He’s had two...

Alaina Jenkins’ favorite moment of her bowling career was also the one in which she felt the most pressure. Franklin Regional’s girls program had endured more than a decade of consecutive losing seasons and was one turn away in Week 8 from securing at least a share of its first...

Adou Thiero School: Quaker Valley Sport: Basketball Class: Sophomore Claim to fame: Adou Thiero wants to be a businessman, and he already takes an all-business approach for the Quakers. He averaged 22 points, five rebounds and two steals per game in three wins last week, which included a game-tying shot...

Max Belt School: Sewickley Academy Sport: Basketball Class: Junior Claim to fame: Max Belt and his older brother Donald founded Rebuilding Pittsburgh, a service club at Sewickley Academy that helps families in the region build homes. He tries to have just as much of an impact on the court as...

Maddy Neundorfer didn’t know who Hope Solo or Briana Scurry was when she began to play soccer. Long before she emulated women’s U.S. national team legends, Maddy was her older brother Bryan’s biggest fan. They were known to play soccer in the backyard, on the road and at a soccer...

Conner Redinger School: Quaker Valley Sport: Wrestling Class: Junior Claim to fame: Conner Redinger’s dad wanted him to get tougher for football, so he signed his son up for wrestling years ago. Redinger has never looked back on the mat and has been one of the state’s top wrestlers for...

Isabel Huang’s swimming is a thing of beauty, Quaker Valley coach Alexis Glenn said. The Sewickley Academy sophomore excels for the Quakers on a cooperative swim team, but she wasn’t always a natural in the water. If not for her parents’ encouragement, Huang said, she likely would have dropped the...

Kamryn Lightcap School: Sewickley Academy Sport: Girls Basketball Class: Junior Claim to fame: Kamryn Lightcap’s favorite subject in school is math. If she’s not in the classroom crunching numbers to find an answer, you can probably find her solving opponents on the basketball court. Lightcap has nearly averaged a double-double...

Colin Rice School: Quaker Valley Sport: Hockey Class: Senior Claim to fame: Colin Rice was on his first hockey team about a decade ago when he thought he could be a good goaltender. He asked his dad if he could try it and hasn’t left the crease since. Rice has...

Sewickley Academy’s hockey team should have been easy to pick apart in its most recent game against North Catholic. They were teams heading in opposite directions — the Panthers winless through 11 games and the Trojans owning the second-best record in Class A. Yet Sewickley Academy, a team that has...

Finn Solomon and Carter Dibert recently won titles at the King of the Mountain Tournament, one of the most competitive regional wrestling events to start the season. The two Franklin Regional wrestlers, separated by six pounds, competed against each other in the following days as if they were in a...

Steve Scorpion looked up to the late Mike Rettger, who was five years older and a co-captain on Franklin Regional’s basketball team. Rettger always made time for Scorpion in 1997, the year the Panthers made it to their second WPIAL championship game. In the three years Scorpion has led the...