High School category, Page 1230
North Allegheny’s Martindale named Trib HSSN Girls Athlete of the Year
In her senior year at North Allegheny, all Rachel Martindale did was average nearly 14 points per game on the hardwood and hit nearly .480 on the softball diamond while helping the Tigers to the district title games in both sports. Not bad for two seasons that at one point...
Looking back at the top 15 high school sports stories of the 2018-19 school year
8.6.18 The WPIAL receives a wave of paperwork from athletes hurrying to beat an Aug. 6 deadline for a new PIAA rule that makes transfers automatically ineligible for the postseason. 9.6.18 Connellsville defeats Penn Hills, 6-1, in a boys soccer game marred by allegations of racial slurs. The accusations against...
Looking back at the WPIAL’s state champions for 2018-19
PARADE OF CHAMPIONS Here’s a look at state champions from the WPIAL during the 2018-19 school year: Boys basketball Moon (5A) Lincoln Park (3A) Girls basketball Peters Township (6A) Chartiers Valley (5A) Competitive spirit Bethel Park (small division) Butler (coed division) Boys cross country North Allegheny (3A) Greensburg Salem (2A)...
Hempfield’s Mackenna Orie named Tribune-Review Westmoreland Girls Athlete of the Year
Mackenna Orie took up track and field, throwing events in particular, because she watched her sister, Sam, heave heavy objects during meets. It looked fun. Challenging and burdensome, maybe, but something she wanted to try. Four years later, Orie is following in her sister’s footsteps as a Division I thrower....
Palmer Jackson named Tribune-Review Westmoreland Boys Athlete of the Year
Franklin Regional senior Palmer Jackson has played some of the top golf courses across the United States. The list includes Oakmont Country Club, Baltusrol, Pebble Beach and Valhalla, and that was in 2018. But one course he never has played could be the best in Western Pennsylvania: Laurel Valley in...
Springdale’s Michael Zolnierczyk named Valley News Dispatch Boys Athlete of the Year
Michael Zolnierczyk has been front and center in maintaining two of the Alle-Kiski Valley’s most enduring sports legacies: Springdale Dynamos soccer and basketball. The soccer program has won nine WPIAL titles and several runners-up. The basketball team has won mor than 1,100 games and has made 34 WPIAL playoff appearances....
Trib HSSN Rewind: A look back at the 2018 field hockey season
All teams seek the glory of capturing a WPIAL championship, whether it be in football, baseball, softball or field hockey. No matter what the sport, the feeling is always the same for any team that comes into contact with the WPIAL hardware. Three field hockey teams got to experience that...
Tui Brown returns as 2-way playmaker for Gateway football
The Tribune-Review and the TribLive High School Sports Network are profiling each member of the 25-player Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star team. The players will be recognized July 23 during HSSN Media Day at Kennywood Park. There is good news and bad news coming out of Gateway football camp this...
Hempfield’s Fintan Brose gets bigger, stronger
The Tribune-Review and the TribLive High School Sports Network are profiling each member of the 25-player Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star team. The players will be recognized July 23 during HSSN Media Day at Kennywood Park. When Hempfield senior Fintan Brose wants to get away from football, he will grab...
South Hills notebook: Zang, Karcher shined at plate for Thomas Jefferson softball
Notebook items from around the Thomas Jefferson campus: • The final numbers are in. The TJ softball team advanced to the WPIAL playoffs for the fourth year in a row and fifth time in six seasons this past season. The Jaguars finished second in Section 2-4A, then advanced to the...
Quaker Valley’s Dominic Reiter to play soccer at Pitt
Dominic Reiter was in disbelief, so he called his twin brother, Fritz, to share that Pitt soccer coach Jay Vidovich offered him a spot on the team. The shock didn’t wear off for about a week — the time it took for Dominic to commit to his dream school —...
Injuries derail promising season for Shady Side Academy boys track and field team
Although the Shady Side Academy boys track and field team posted an impressive 5-1 record and made it to the WPIAL Class AA team playoffs, it was a season of high hopes that were swept away by injury. “There were some disappointments during the season with the biggest being injuries,”...
Fox Chapel baseball eager for 2020 season
Fox Chapel baseball coach Jim Hastings felt his team made some strides this past season. “We qualified for the WPIAL playoffs for the second year in a row. Though we lost in the first round, it was to a really strong Mars team,” Hastings said. The Foxes, who finished 10-9...
Thomas Jefferson’s Wagner leaves mark with school record
Zach Wagner knows how to make a grandiose exit. At the final meet of his high school track career at Thomas Jefferson, Wagner broke a 27-year-old record at the WPIAL Class AAA championships at Slippery Rock. Wagner posted a time of 22.26 seconds in the 200-meter dash to narrowly beat...
Mars basketball’s Bella Pelaia commits to Mount St. Mary’s
For the third time in three years, the Mars girls basketball team has a Division 1 recruit. Bella Pelaia, a 6-foot forward and rising senior, announced her commitment to Mount St. Mary’s on Friday. She follows former teammates Tai Johnson (Bucknell) and Lauren Wasylson (Xavier) as D1 recruits. Johnson was...
Class A Trib HSSN Sports Cup champions continue winning ways
Even though one of the longest championship runs in WPIAL history came to an end this spring, it did not slow down that school from winning yet another Trib HSSN Sports Cup. Sewickley Academy won two WPIAL championships and one PIAA crown in the 2018-19 school year to cruise to...
Trib HSSN rewind: A look back at the 2018 girls volleyball season
For the second straight year, the North Allegheny girls volleyball team went undefeated and captured both a WPIAL and PIAA championship. BACK-TO-BACK STATE CHAMPS!!!@nagirlsvb @NorthAllegheny @Big56Conference @TribLiveHSSN @astockeyWTAE pic.twitter.com/SLAzCLdNs3— NATigers (@NATigers18) November 18, 2018 Match winning point for North Allegheny to beat Baldwin in the girls 4A volleyball championship game...
Leechburg brings back Damian Davies to head boys basketball program
After parting ways with boys basketball coach Corey Smith last week, the Leechburg School Board found its new coach, and the members didn’t have to look far. On Wednesday, Damian Davies, was approved by the board to return to the program for the 2019-20 season. “We went through our evaluation...
Ex-Blackhawk baseball star Brendan McKay making major league debut
As the Trib’s player of the year in 2014, Blackhawk’s Brendan McKay was asked to predict where he saw himself in five years. “Hopefully playing baseball somewhere,” he answered. “In the minor leagues, probably. Maybe even close to the major leagues.” Accuracy always was a strength for the talented left-hander....
Trib HSSN rewind: A look back at the 2018 cross country season
There is a reason gold is in North Allegheny’s team colors. Gold is usually given to first place teams or individuals, and North Allegheny’s boys and girls cross country teams earned gold medals and trophies for winning the PIAA Class AAA championships last fall. The North Allegheny boys outdistanced La...
Hampton grad Harper Cook joins American U soccer
Perhaps four years from now, Harper Cook will understand the reason he will be spending his college years in Washington, D.C., instead of New Jersey. Cook, the only Division I recruit of Hampton boys soccer coach Matt McAwley’s six-year tenure, had committed to Rutgers. But when the Scarlet Knights coaching...
Youth camp helps build foundation for Shaler football program
James Ryan didn’t want to see any momentum the Shaler Area football team gained fade. The third-year Titans football coach was able to see tangible progress at the school’s annual football camp. Recently, the school saw 109 kids participate in a summer camp at the high school aimed at getting...
Plum’s Montue taking advantage of AAU success
For the past two seasons, Kennedie Montue has been a staple in the starting lineup for the Plum girls basketball team. She has led the team in scoring since she was a freshman, and over the course of her sophomore season her game started to come together completely. She finished...
Central Catholic’s A.J. Beatty grows along with expectations
The Tribune-Review and the TribLive High School Sports Network are profiling each member of the 25-player Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star team. The players will be recognized July 23 during HSSN Media Day at Kennywood Park. When A.J. Beatty arrived at Central Catholic last summer, defensive coordinator Dave Fleming saw...
Class 2A Trib HSSN Sports Cup title defense bolstered by 3 WPIAL titles
A year after winning the closest Trib HSSN Sports Cup chase in the 15-year history of the event, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart took a slightly different path to victory the second time around. Last year, OLSH charged to the Class 2A Sports Cup title without winning a single...
