John Grupp stories, Page 8

So much for resting on your laurels. Coming off its best season in a decade, the Hampton boys basketball team is staying busy this summer. The Talbots went 5-1 and reached the championship game of the Northgate undergraduate league before beginning play in late May in the monthlong Pittsburgh Basketball...

Hampton track won WPIAL and PIAA gold medals in May with a relay team that got a late start and a miler who had a great finish. The girls 3,200 relay team of Kevyn Fish, Ava Vitiello, Teresa Grimm and Kathleen Milon, who ran together only twice prior to the...

Things looked bleak for the Hampton baseball team at midseason. A 10-6 nonsection loss at Montour on April 20 dropped the Talbots to 3-8 overall, and they had lost three consecutive Section 4-4A games to fall to 2-4. “It was not doing the little things,” senior ace left-haander Ryan Apaliski...

Hampton softball coach Ron Fedell, who celebrated his 200th career victory earlier this month, is stepping down after 23 seasons. Fedell, 68, said he and his wife Kathy have custody of their 4-year-old granddaughter, who is autistic. Fedell said his time and focus need to be on her. “It’s just...

Former Hampton three-sport standout Matt DeMatteo already owns the third-fastest 400-meter hurdle time in Duquesne track and field history. Imagine what will happen when he figures out what he’s doing. “I’ve always been a three-sport athlete and never really focused all of my time on track,” DeMatteo said. “So I’m...

There were many reasons why the Aquinas Academy girls lacrosse team missed the WPIAL playoffs this season for the first time since 2016. An inexperienced starting lineup, a season-costing ACL injury to one of its top players and an offseason realignment into a rugged section were the main culprits. But...

In Bella Henzler’s first game at James Madison, she hit a ball into the left-centerfield gap and raced around the bases for an inside-the-park home run. She hasn’t slowed down since. Henzler, a former Hampton all-state catcher, started all 46 regular-season games for the JMU softball team, batting clean-up for...

The Hampton boys tennis team finished 8-8 this year, but it sure felt like a winning season. The Talbots went 4-1 in Section 3-2A, reached the WPIAL quarterfinals for the first time in five years, brought home a section doubles crown for only the second time in two decades and...

The top of Hampton’s softball lineup is at the top of its game this season. The Talbots’ 1-2-3 hitters in the batting order — Charlotte Lomb, Mackenzie Reese and Addy Maguire — are powering the team’s march to the WPIAL playoffs for a fifth consecutive season. • Lomb, a junior...

Dick Groat long has been considered one of Western Pennsylvania’s greatest sports figures. Which sport depended on the generation, as the Swissvale native was a two-sport star at Duke, one of only 13 people to play in both the NBA and MLB and later spent four decades calling college basketball...

When Hampton’s Emi DiLiberto started playing lacrosse in fifth grade, she was petrified of the hard, rubber ball. “I was terrified,” she said. “I wanted nothing to do with it.” Now, she’s scary. DiLiberto, a senior midfielder, overcame her initial fear and has blossomed into one of the top scorers...

Aquinas Academy junior Jack Gillespie is a three-time Tae Kwon Do world champion and is ranked No. 2 in the nation in his age group for combat weapons. He also wields a pretty mean tennis racquet. Gillespie rolled to the WPIAL Section 3-2A singles title in late March and took...

Hampton senior Eric Weeks’ offseason between basketball and baseball this year lasted about 12 hours. The morning after Hampton’s PIAA basketball playoff loss March 14, he joined his baseball teammates to take a bus to North Carolina for a three-day camp. The hectic schedule is standard procedure for Weeks, a...

When Aquinas Academy senior Vinnie Cugini joined the school’s boys volleyball team for the first time this spring, he had mild expectations. “I really thought it would be something cool and relaxing to do,” said Cugini, the WPIAL’s all-time boys basketball scoring leader. “I thought it could be something I’m...

The Hampton girls track and field team will be led this season by a Kat, a Fish and a soon-to-be Husky. The trio of returning PIAA qualifiers — junior Kathleen Milon, sophomore Kevyn Fish and Northeastern-bound senior Ava Vitiello — give the Talbots a formidable foundation in the running events....

The Hampton boys track and field team this season has a lot of question marks that might turn into exclamation points. The Talbots’ 47-boy roster is dotted with multi-sport athletes who are giving high school track a try for the first time. “These are all unknowns,” second-year coach Heather Dietz...

The Hampton girls lacrosse program has only 25 players this season spread across the varsity and JV rosters. It is one of the thinnest rosters in coach Kelsey Burke’s nine seasons — they typically have 35-plus — and prevents the Talbots from holding full-field scrimmages at practice. But every one...

The Hampton boys lacrosse team was playing an intrasquad practice game in late March under the lights at Fridley Field when pouring rain began. The soaked players were enthusiastic and energized despite the wet, windy conditions at the end of their two-hour workout. And second-year coach Andy DeMichiei is starting...

In tennis, “love” is another word for zero. But for Hampton’s No. 1 singles player, adoration for his newfound sport has added up to a lot. Junior Vitaliy Pikalo, a lifelong swimmer who started playing tennis only two years ago, has used his devotion to the courts to claim the...

The Hampton softball team opened the 2023 season with a bizarre at-bat the Talbots won’t soon forget. Junior leadoff hitter Charlotte Lomb smashed a deep first-inning drive at Fox Chapel on March 20 that was called a ground-rule double. But umpires eventually ruled the ball cleared the fence, giving Lomb...

The motto for the Hampton boys basketball team this season was “to live in the moment.” The Talbots did just that, and it turned out the moments were many. “It was a great year,” coach Joe Lafko said. “We accomplished a lot. … I’m just so proud of the way...

The Hampton baseball team is hoping one ace and a bunch of wild cards can turn into a winning hand. The Talbots return senior Ryan Apaliski, a James Madison recruit, but are left with question marks on the mound behind their star southpaw. “We don’t have any of the experience...

Bored, restless and stuck at home during the lockdown three years ago, then-Hampton eighth grader Meghan Murray grabbed a notebook and jotted down five goals for high school basketball. “One of them was ‘Get 1,000 points by junior year,’ ” she said. Check. Murray reached her goal on a free...

When Hampton freshman Gabriella Elk made the transition from gymnastics to diving, one part of the switch proved to be tricky. “I was never used to landing on my head,” she said. “That took some getting used to.” Elk has landed among the best young divers in Hampton history. Despite...

Hampton freshman Dustin Kerr proved a wrist fracture and a sore elbow couldn’t prevent him from climbing a podium. The 15-year-old 127-pounder, who missed a total of six weeks this season with lingering injuries, placed second at sectionals in mid-February and fifth at the WPIAL Class 2A wrestling championships Feb....