Bill Beckner stories, Page 174

It was Military Appreciation Night at Franklin Regional, and players from both teams, the Panthers and Mars, wore T-shirts in pregame warm-ups emblazoned with the words, “Max Effort,” across the chest. That’s what fourth-ranked Mars needed to finally push past the Panthers, 53-42, and earn a Section 3-5A victory Friday...

Decision time is nearing for Robert Kennedy, but the former Jeannette football star is not tipping his hand. Kennedy, a standout safety at Lackawanna College, has plenty of Division I scholarship offers to mull over, which was his goal when he opted for the junior college route in 2018. Now,...

Each March for the past few years, when teams get their section schedules for the following WPIAL season, Allen Deep begins to plan out his list of high school basketball showcase events. The event director with Hoops for a Cure often gets numerous requests from teams to play in the...

Franklin Regional has more depth than it did at the start of the season, and the longer bench could be what gets the Panthers into the WPIAL Class 5A playoffs. The Panthers (8-9, 5-4), who have won four in a row and five of their last six, have been using...

Apparently, there are no actual days off at Jeannette. The boys basketball team did not have practice Monday as coach Adrian Batts gave his players a long weekend. Yet a number of them funneled into the gym after school to get some shots up. They even pulled out the seldom-used...

The locker room at Southmoreland used to be a quiet place, all the ambiance of a library. These days, though, it’s like a heavy metal concert mosh pit before games. “It gets rowdy,” Scotties sophomore guard/forward Gracie Spadaro said. “We all jump around and bang on lockers. Last year, it...

The Pitt-Greensburg women’s basketball team is on a roll. The Bobcats made it five straight wins with a 58-45 victory over D’Youville on Monday as the Bobcats outscored the hosts in the fourth quarter, 18-4, in Buffalo, N.Y. Junior Nadege Durand powered UPG (9-7, 7-4) with 25 points and 19...

Scott Giacobbi has been through peaks and valleys while coaching the Mt. Pleasant girls basketball team. He hes seen playoff streaks, postseason wins and bumpy, rebuilding seasons such as this one. In his 15 years in charge of the Vikings, though, the modest coach never has made it about himself....

Heading into Saturday’s game at Ohio Christian, Michelle Burns needed six points to reach 1,000 for her career at Point Park. Burns, a junior guard, took away the suspense in a hurry. The Hempfield alum scored the first seven points for the Pioneers to top the milestone, but they went...

Austin Butler and Reed Fenton used to be high school teammates on high-scoring boys basketball teams at Latrobe. But Wednesday night, they will meet for the first time as college opponents. Butler, a junior guard at Holy Cross, will join the Crusaders (2-17, 1-5) in hosting Fenton and Lehigh (5-13,...

Clutching a precarious lead, Southmoreland did not take care of the basketball particularly well in the fourth quarter and McKeesport pressed the Scotties into turnovers. It didn’t matter. Southmoreland ran into foul trouble and also missed its share of free throws. It didn’t matter. McKeesport kept coming back. Yep, it...

Longtime Pitt-Johnstown men’s basketball coach Bob Rukavina joined the 500-win club Saturday as the Mountain Cats defeated visiting Slippery Rock, 72-69. Rukavina, a Lower Burrell native who has traveled to and from his hometown to work for over three decades to coach UPJ, is now 500-347 since taking over the...

Penn-Trafford senior football player Noah Allen is drawing Division I attention as national signing day (Feb. 5) approaches. Allen received his second Division I FCS scholarship offer, from Butler. The 6-foot-2, 175-pound Allen also has an offer from Valparaiso. He had 15 receptions for 228 yards and two touchdowns this...

With realignment, WPIAL football will change again like it does every two years. The latest tweaks won’t reach the drastic degree some thought, but a number of teams undoubtedly will be competing in new territory come the fall — and not everyone will he happy. The new-look landscape will not...

Luke Kimmich was starting for Franklin Regional earlier in the basketball season. But the junior guard has changed roles of late, taking over the sixth-man duties for the Panthers. It’s a role he accepted because he understood why the change was made. “We have been bringing him off the bench...

Nate Davis thinks worldly and reacts positively as he navigates through his final basketball season at Seton Hill. He takes the bad with the good and remains magnanimous no matter the outcome of games. This has been a trying year for the Griffins (2-13, 1-9) but Davis, the third-leading scorer...

Kerry Hetrick started wearing glasses lately. While he isn’t quite comfortable with the change, his vision for Penn-Trafford athletics remains clear. And his work in the program does not go unseen. Hetrick, the athletic director at Penn-Trafford, received the Pennsylvania State Athletic Directors Association Distinguished Coaching Educator (DICE) Award. The...

Latrobe is experiencing a down season. Those are words you don’t hear very often coming from the Wildcats’ program. But the coaches and players are taking it all in stride. They knew losing 20-points-a-game scorers Reed Fenton and Bryce Butler would not be easy. “I have been through it before,”...

Things got a little heated, Norwin junior basketball player Ty Bilinsky said while recalling a run-in with his younger brother. “He pushed me into a glass door on the side of our house,” he said. “The glass broke. I was OK but we had to call that game off because...

Gia Scala sat out with an injury and waited to get cleared to return to basketball at Greensburg Central Catholic. She missed the first three games but quickly made her presence known when she returned. Scala, who is from North Huntingdon and attended Norwin before transferring to GCC, has scored...

Teams know what they are getting when they play Penn-Trafford: a steady dose of Zach Rocco. But as the Warriors go through the season, something is happening. A supporting cast is taking shape and Rocco, the team’s lone senior, does not have to do it all. Make no mistake, Rocco...

Jenna Cole is one of those rare cases: a basketball player who gets to celebrate the 1,000-point mark twice in her college career. Cole, a Norwin graduate and a senior forward at La Roche, accomplished the feat over the weekend as she scored her 1,000th point as a player at...

The WPIAL-infused Shippensburg men’s basketball team is riding a five-game winning streak, which includes an upset over No. 8 West Chester. The Raiders (12-3, 8-1 PSAC) were lauded for their recent success by being named the National Association of Basketball Coaches Division II Team of the Week. Coached by Latrobe...