Dave Mackall stories, Page 21

Baldwin football coach Tim Sweeney has spent a lot of time in Westmoreland County winning games while at Derry, his alma mater. He took the Trojans to four consecutive WPIAL playoff appearances in six seasons. “Yeah, I’ve been following Derry,” he said. “I mean, I’m a Derry grad, so the...

When he was a kid, Luke Hauger did what a lot of aspiring boys liked to do in the backyard: He kicked a football. When he got older, he began to play organized sports and kicked with even more frequency. He seemed to really like it. You could say Hauger...

Leechburg’s superb season continued Friday night against one of the WPIAL’s winningest programs. It was a sweet outcome for the Blue Devils, who routed Jeannette, 53-7, in a WPIAL Class A Eastern Conference game for their first victory at storied McKee Stadium. This isn’t your average Leechburg football team. The...

“You can’t let things get you down. It’s just staring at adversity right in his eyes and taking advantage of every day you have. You have to go out there and make the most of every opportunity, despite your situation.” Sound like classic coachspeak? You bet, but from a coach’s...

Baseball mainly has been his summer sport, hockey in the winter. But golf? Well, for Wade Boyle, it’s becoming something he wants to take part in all the time. So much so the Greensburg Central Catholic junior has given up playing summer league baseball to concentrate on the links, though...

Ligonier Valley spent another Friday night tuning up for what’s next: The games that count. The Rams, ranked No. 5 in WPIAL Class 2A, open Allegheny Conference play in a week at Steel Valley with what coach Roger Beitel said following Friday night’s 62-12 rout of visiting Carrick will be...

Friends since birth? Well, perhaps not that far back. But close enough. To the best of their recollection, Ashten Flynn and Payton Hileman have been “best friends” since they were 3 years old. “Our parents were good friends, too,” Flynn said. “They did all kinds of things together, and the...

Call Derry girls volleyball coach Brock Smith a perfectionist of sorts, though it’s far from a flawless setting. Derry, which is off to a 2-1 start in Section 5-2A, hasn’t won any WPIAL championships in the sport and has made just one appearance in the PIAA playoffs since Smith took...

Deer Lakes’ long losing streak in football is over. Derek Burk threw three touchdown passes — two to Conner Walker during a 19-point third-quarter outburst that ignited a running clock — to lead the visiting Lancers to a 49-0 rout of winless Derry on Friday night in the Allegheny 7...

It’s not likely to be a situation where a new coach inherits a talented team, then appears to be a genius if the team goes on to new heights. No, in this particular case, it doesn’t seem to be that way at all. This coach and these girls already were...

Maybe it’s her competitive nature. Perhaps it’s the bittersweet memory of falling just short of a PIAA championship as a Greensburg Salem senior in 2006-07 that motivates Rachel Brannigan. Then again, playing girls volleyball for revered coach Lynn Jobe, the architect of the Golden Lions’ magical Class 3A state championship...

Kiski Area and Latrobe conducted a football staredown, trading touchdowns nearly all night long. Until Latrobe flinched. Chad Hepler, picking up the slack when starter Brock Wilkins went down early with an injury, rushed for 136 yards and a key 30-yard touchdown late, and Logan Johnson passed for 171 yards...

Hempfield field hockey, a program without at least a .500 record since its inception nearly 20 years ago, will look to former St. Francis (Pa.) midfielder Nikki (Snyder) Schmitt this season in the hope of building a winner. She replaces Michele Fischer, whose teams at Hempfield never won more than...

She is the final sibling from a family known for its athletic excellence to etch her name into Westmoreland County sports folklore. And she’s just a junior at Latrobe. Lily Fenton, a 5-foot-6 setter who, in 2020, was a WPIAL first-team all-section player and was recognized by the AAU National...

In its opener a week ago, Greensburg Salem folded in the fourth quarter. The Golden Lions didn’t let it happen again on Friday night. Greensburg Salem scored 20 fourth-quarter points to pull away from visiting Connellsville and earn a 36-19 victory. Hayden Teska threw a touchdown pass and rushed for...

Vince Skillings stood motionless as his grandson, Latrobe sophomore Ja’Tawn Williams, intercepted a Derry pass and raced 45 yards for a touchdown on the final play of the game. It was about the only thing Skillings could laugh about after Latrobe thrashed his Trojans, 61-0, on Friday night in the...

Just three years removed from its latest WPIAL football championship, Steel Valley is trying to find a way back to the top. “They’re getting it, slowly but surely,” said coach Ray Braszo, who returned to the Ironmen’s helm in 2019, a year after the school won its second WPIAL Class...

Like so many coaches, Brandon Overdorff has so many questions. Are we big enough? Are we strong enough? Are we fast enough? Can we compete? Indiana, currently the easternmost WPIAL member school, is preparing to chase another winning season, something that has escaped the Indians in Overdorff’s first three years...

Not long ago at East Allegheny, the concept of regularly playing football in the postseason was but a dream. It rarely happened. Anymore, though, just making it there isn’t enough. “We’ve gotten the program to where we’re getting to the playoffs. We even won a game (in 2017),” coach Dom...

The siblings, three years apart, sat within earshot of one another, along with some others in the field, while awaiting the official results of the annual Westmoreland County Golf Association Junior Amateur Tournament. That’s not to say Alex and Nicholas Turowski didn’t already know who would finish atop the leaderboard...

A disappointing weekend of baseball at Seton Hill couldn’t keep the Griffins down for long. Of course, being rewarded with a top seed in the NCAA Division II regionals helped with the pain of losing out on a conference title. But a trip to the ice cream stand was just...

Hempfield is headed to a WPIAL baseball championship game for the first time in school history. Christian Zilli had three hits, four RBIs and closed out Hempfield’s 12-2 rout of Norwin following Jake Kramer’s strong start for the third-seeded Spartans in the Class 6A semifinals on Tuesday at Latrobe. Hempfield...

Home runs have been a friend of Seton Hill baseball this season, but the long ball came back to haunt the Griffins in their bid for a third Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference championship in five years. Bloomsburg homered five times to produce all its runs, and the Huskies won the...

Down a game in the best-of-3 championship series, Bloomsburg rode freshman Michael Standen’s five-hitter to a convincing 9-2 victory over No. 6 Seton Hill on Friday in the second game of a doubleheader in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Tournament at SHU Baseball Complex. Anthony Viggiano hit a grand slam,...

The No. 7 Seton Hill baseball team was staring at only its fifth loss of the season Sunday when Jack Oberdorf stepped to the plate against Mercyhurst in the top of the ninth inning. One swing of the bat gave the Griffins a three-run lead in the second game of...