Bill Beckner stories, Page 12

As Washington & Jefferson football players filed into the locker room at halftime, Justin Johns knew he had broken the other team’s spirit, but was unaware he’d broken a team record. Johns, a frightening fifth-year linebacker out of Franklin Regional, had heard he was close to breaking the Presidents’ all-time...

One coach was concerned with how his team started. The other, with how his finished. It’s very early, but critiques now are going to be harsher than they might be later in the season. Greensburg Central Catholic built double-digit leads at halftime and at the start of the fourth quarter...

The Hempfield Spartan Field House will be the site of six boys basketball games Friday and Saturday for the 20th Hempfield tipoff tournament. On Friday, the opening game will mark the return of longtime coach Paul Sapotichne to Greensburg Salem. The Golden Lions will play Connellsville at 4:45 p.m. Sapotichne...

A cerebral leader behind the plate for Hempfield, Ella Berkebile has softball instincts that allow her to control the cadence of games. The catcher has been battery mates with standout pitchers Riley Miller and Julia Varhola, framing spots for them while also working to get groundouts and flyouts. The junior...

Penn-Trafford learned how to play without Torrie DeStefano last season after the then-sophomore guard suffered a season-ending knee injury just six games into the schedule. Now that she is back, coach John Giannikas clearly prefers life with DeStefano in the lineup. “It’s great to have her back,” the veteran coach...

Trailing Glenville State by two points with 6.7 seconds remaining, Seton Hill had one more punch waiting for the visiting Pioneers. A near turnover in the closing moments instead became the shot of the year so far for the men’s basketball team. Grad guard Ryan Meis inbounded from in front...

Eliezer Nicolas bristles a bit when he is referred to as a late bloomer in the college track recruiting game. The senior from Norwin, though, acknowledges he was a Division I prospect who simply had not yet been discovered. “I see myself as a hidden gem,” Nicolas said. “I am...

The third annual We Serve First All-Star Girls Volleyball Classic is set for 3 p.m. Saturday at Kiski Area. Nine local girls were among the 40 selected to play — Pyper Ferres of Burrell; Carson Burgh of Franklin Regional; Maddie Joyce, Adelyne Ledbetter and Jael Ledbetter of Kiski Area; Addison...

Trib HSSN Boys Soccer All-Stars Player of the year Ryan Moessner, Jr., F, Bentworth Taking his teammates on a journey that began in Washington County and ended in Mechanicsburg, junior Ryan Moessner left the deepest footprint on the highest-scoring boys soccer team in the WPIAL. An electric goal-scoring threat who...

Trib HSSN Girls Soccer All-Stars Player of the year Molly Kubistek, Jr., GK, Peters Township Molly Kubistek received a lofty honor last month when she won the sixth Moe Rosensteel Most Outstanding Player Award, essentially crowning her the top player in the WPIAL. For the first time, the selection committee...

2024 Girls Soccer All-Stars Player of the year Alexis Brown, Sr., MF, Penn-Trafford Unsure of how she would return from a fractured kneecap that tore down her junior year, Alexis Brown set out to reset her career and have a memorable bounce-back season. The Penn-Trafford senior wanted to stay healthy...

2024 Boys Soccer All-Stars • Player of the year • Roman Agostoni, Sr., MF, Latrobe The time will come when Roman Agostoni pauses to reflect on the incredible senior soccer season he had for Latrobe and the frontman role that he embraced to help the Wildcats make history. Perhaps the...

Lucky bounces can help a football team go a long way. Coaches even say they are necessary to winning in the postseason. Unlucky ones, on the other hand, can spell doom. Norwin started 2-0 for the first time since 2014, but a rash of injuries sent the Knights spiraling to...

Franklin Regional made the WPIAL Class 5A football quarterfinals without one of its top defensive players. Senior linebacker Austin Kerns was on his way to a monster year when he was injured in a Week 7 loss at Penn-Trafford. He already was recovering from a high ankle sprain when he...

Starting 5s A preview of girls high school basketball season in Westmoreland County: 5 storylines to follow: • The sugar high has worn off, for now, but the returning players remember how sweet it was, those glorious championship moments at “The Pete,” Pitt’s Petersen Events Center. Norwin and Greensburg Central...

Starting 5s A preview of boys high school basketball season in Westmoreland County: Boys 5 storylines to follow: • Postseason basketball can provide surprises and a little magic, as evidenced by Franklin Regional’s thrill ride last year to the WPIAL and PIAA finals. Recreating that scenery won’t be easy, but...

Forty-nine senior girls from the WPIAL will converge on the AHN Sports Complex at Cool Springs in Bethel Park Saturday for the Western Pennsylvania High School Girls Soccer Coaches Association all-star games. There will be three teams that will play three games in a round-robin format. The opening game begins...

When it comes to wrestling at Army, Ethan Berginc is one good soldier. Berginc, a Jeannette native who wrestled at Hempfield via a co-operative agreement, is on a roll eary in his junior season. Far from his days as a plebe, Berginc won back-to-back titles at 133 pounds, the second...

Latrobe senior Robin Reilly and Mt. Pleasant junior Morgan Gesinski were finalists for the Moe Rosensteel girls soccer award, but the local pair have something else in common. Reilly and Gesinski were selected as all-state players by the Pennsylvania Soccer Coaches Association, Reilly as a midfielder, Gesinski as a forward....

The Pennsylvania Soccer Coaches Association announced its all-state girls lists. Three WPIAL players were selected as forwards: Fox Chapel sophomore Emily McKee, senior Brianna Ross of Springdale, and Mt. Pleasant junior Morgan Gesinski. Montour senior Grace Bannon, junior Karly Majeski of Seneca Valley, senior Camryn Klein of Peters Township, Latrobe...

It didn’t take Riley Gesinski long to adjust to college-level soccer in the NCAA Division III Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference. The freshman midfielder from Pitt-Greensburg made her mark this season, and conference coaches noticed. The former Mt. Pleasant standout was named the AMCC Newcomer of the Year. She led a...

Jenna Lusby didn’t have to look far to find an assistant coach as she embarks on her first season as girls basketball coach at Jeannette. Her husband, Arnold, will serve as her assistant. Love and basketball was never truer than this arrangement. The couple met playing pick-up hoops at an...

Waiting on 10 players to return from football season might seem like a burden to some WPIAL basketball coaches. (Cue the “Jeopardy” think music.) But not to Jeannette boys coach Adrian Batts, whose message to the two-sport guys was this: take your time coming back. “For me, it’s not new,”...

Norwin boys soccer standout Daniel Maddock was named the player of the year in Section 1-4A by the Big 5/6 Conference, an online entity that covers the largest classifications in the WPIAL. A quick, get-ahead-of-the-pack forward, Maddock also was a first-team all-section pick after scoring 22 goals and handing out...

The winner of the sixth Moe Rosensteel Most Outstanding Player of the Year for the top girls soccer player in the WPIAL will be announced at 5 p.m. Monday via social media. The finalists are Morgan Gesinski (Jr., F, Mt. Pleasant), Molly Kubistek (Jr., GK, Peters Township), Emily McKee (So.,...