Bill Beckner stories, Page 25

The new fall season will come with a new varsity sport at Latrobe. A girls golf team will begin play in WPIAL Section 4-3A with Armstrong, Fox Chapel, Indiana, Kiski Area, Oakland Catholic and Plum. Plum also is a first-year program. Latrobe will start as a self-sustaining club team. This...

Championship softball coach Chris Brunson is making the jump to the college level as he leaves the Mt. Pleasant high school team to head to Waynesburg University. Brunson resigned after leading Mt. Pleasant for the last six seasons and accepted the Yellow Jackets’ head coach position. He replaces Brett Shimek,...

Highlands likes to play fast, up-tempo basketball. It always has, even when a new coach took over. From the late Rich Falter and Shawn Bennis to Tyler Stoczynski and Corey Dotchin, the team just liked to get it and go. For their next coach, the Golden Rams will go with...

There is a good old-fashioned quarterback competition brewing in Alverton, and the top preseason storyline for Southmoreland football already has people chewing the fat at gas stations and mini-marts. “It’s the talk of the town,” Scotties coach Tim Bukowski said. “People are asking me, ’Coach, who’s it going to be?’...

Rising senior John Wetzel has seen first hand the resurgence of the Latrobe football program. He has noticed the change in attitude. The shift in perception. The wins. “We have a lot more we want to do: A state title is the main goal,” said Wetzel, a quarterback and defensive...

She once talked about becoming an FBI agent or working for the secret service. But the magnetism of basketball kept pulling Vanessa Abel back to the bench. Abel’s calling appears to be coaching, and her ascent in the profession continued Monday with a promotion. The Southmoreland graduate was named associate...

Three Seton Hill baseball players were lauded for their outstanding defensive play this season. Grad students Jack Oberdorf (Greensburg Salem) and Owen Sabol (Norwin), the Griffins’ third baseman and shortstop, and senior catcher Braden Durham were named to the All-American Baseball Coaches Association Atlantic Region Defensive Team. Seton Hill tied...

Rease Solomon will be stopping shots in the Horizon League. The rising senior soccer goalkeeper at Penn-Trafford announced a verbal commitment to Robert Morris. Solomon, a Pittsburgh Riverhounds Academy player, was an all-section performer last season. She allowed 16 goals, made 113 saves and posted six shutouts for the Warriors...

College football recruiting has become a perpetual motion machine in the Tatsch household. First, Latrobe rising senior Alex Tatsch (6-foot-3, 220) became inundated with FBS scholarship offers, welcoming 20 of them before the standout linebacker committed to Penn State. Now Andy Tatsch, his younger brother, is beginning to draw Division...

“Fight, fight, fight!” Cheyenne Piper started that chant, and it caught on in the Ligonier Valley dugout. The senior softball pitcher who took the WPIAL by storm this postseason with a rash of no-hitters wants people to remember her for that chorus, for that fight. When Piper was fired up,...

Defensive back Gio Vonne Sanders entered the NFL Draft in 2023. The move came with no guarantees, only that his name would be out there and it showed he was aiming for the next level following a sound college career that included two-year run at St. Francis (Pa.) with a...

When her playing career ended, Jenna Lusby often played pickup to satisfy her basketball needs. That is what hoop junkies and gym rats do. (Lusby is fine with those labels because they suit her.) One of her stops was LA Fitness in Greensburg. Not only did she meet her future...

Pitt closer Phil Fox (Hempfield) needs more space on his trophy shelf and more nails for his wall of plaques. Nailing down wins has become his forte. The rising redshirt junior was named to the American Baseball Coaches Association/Rawlings All-Region First Team and All-America third team following a splendid season...

The Class of 2024 is set for the Franklin Regional Athletic Hall of Fame. This year’s inductees include: • Andrew Cohen (Class of 2004, track & field) • Brian Grimm (1984, cross country/track & field) • Tyler Smith (2014, wrestling) • Gay Eyles Stock (1977, swimming) • Pam Miklasevich Sumner...

It started with a bang in the fall. It ended with a surprise in the spring. With a bounty of success, Norwin’s 2023-24 sports year called for more space on the gymansium walls as athletic director Mike Burrell placed orders for championship banners. Fall The boys soccer team used its...

After changing his college allegiances, Franklin Regional graduate Chuck Tragesser continues to sharpen his golf game over the summer. Tragesser was medalist at a recent Western Pennsylvania Golf Association Amateur Championship qualifying tournament, finishing with a flourish to advance. A member at Willowbrook Country Club, he made two birdies and...

Jaymier Austin transferred to Franklin Regional when he was a freshman, leaving Penn Hills to play at another WPIAL Class 5A program. “It’s felt like home ever since,” Austin said. While the scenery changed, the expectations did not. Colleges probably would have found the budding football prospect wherever he played....

Tre Cunningham’s memory gleams on in Jeannette, and the summer varsity basketball tournament in his name keeps growing because of it. The fourth annual Tre Cunningham Memorial Basketball Tournament, presented by the Jeannette Educational Foundation, is set for June 20-22 at Jeannette High School and Jeannette McKee Elementary. “This is...

A GoFundMe page is set up for the family of Josiah Pastories, a Norwin graduate and former football player and wrestler who was killed in a one-vehicle accident Thursday morning in northern Butler County. Donations can be made here. Pastories, who was 19, was traveling to his welding job when...

The 124th U.S. Open started Thursday morning at Pinehurst. Thirty years ago, South African Ernie Els won the national championship at famed Oakmont Country Club, another historic venue in the USGA anchor rotation that will host the event again in 2025 for a record 10th time. Els, who has back-to-back...

A boost in classification and the ability to offer athletic scholarships for the first time is allowing Westmoreland County Community College to cast a much wider net in the local basketball recruiting game. Players who once were untouchable are now willing to give the junior college path a look. “It...

Yough on Tuesday night promoted junior varsity coach Will “Boo” Sherbondy to head varsity boys basketball coach. Sherbondy, a Yough alum, was a longtime assistant to Jim Nesser, who resigned after six seasons leading the Cougars. Nesser retired from teaching after 38 years. Sherbondy is well known in local basketball...

Bob Ross wasn’t enjoying any happy little trees as he played the first three holes during his golf league last week at Mt. Odin Park. Not many courses open with three par 5s. “I wasn’t playing too well,” Ross said. “I think I was two over par going to No....

Rosters are set for the inaugural Western PA Senior Softball All-Star Game at 8 p.m. June 18 at Plum. It will be Black vs. Gold in a matchup of the WPIAL’s top graduating players. Phil DiLonardo and Julie DiLonardo of Plum, and Jenna Muncie of Avonworth will coach the Black...

Norwin alum Kurtis Phipps qualified to wrestle in the U23 Pan American Championships on June 21-22 in Rionegro, Colombia. The Bucknell senior qualified in Geneva, Ohio, by reaching the 61kg finals of the U23 Freestyle Nationals. Phipps went 5-0 and advanced to the best-of-three finals before losing twice to Ohio...