Michael Love stories, Page 7

Bill Rometo was 5 when he first met Joe Naunchik, then a three-sport star at Plum High School. “He was probably the best athlete to ever come out of Plum,” Rometo said of Naunchik, who was a football standout under Rometo’s father, Bill Rometo Sr. “At that time, my dad...

Jake Nulph made his mark in the collegiate football coaching ranks the past two decades after playing careers at Apollo-Ridge and Robert Morris. Now, the Alle-Kiski Valley native, who served as the football coach at Edinboro since 2020, is coming home. The Kiski Area School Board unanimously approved at a...

Emily Mannion hoped to make the most of a new opportunity this fall on the IUP women’s soccer team. The Gateway graduate and Crimson Hawks sophomore midfielder, who transferred from Clarion after one season, got her chance to shine, and she took full advantage. She scored four goals, one in...

Boys Player of the Year: Milo Chiu, Fox Chapel, Sr., midfielder Milo Chiu remembered an early 2-1 loss to Deer Lakes as a spark for the Fox Chapel boys soccer team. “We didn’t expect to lose that game, and it showed us just how much we had to prepare for...

Girls Soccer Player of the Year: Briana Ross, Sr., F, Springdale Briana Ross blended speed, technique and skill into another standout season for the Springdale girls soccer team. The senior striker was dangerous from anywhere on the field as she scored 42 goals and added 30 assists for a Dynamos...

Starting 5s A preview of the high school girls basketball season in the A-K Valley: 5 storylines to follow • Dana Petruska (Deer Lakes), Jason Kerr (Freeport), Dan LaGamba (Highlands), Chuck Langston (Leechburg) and Tonya Norman (Valley) are new faces at the top. Petruska, who has amassed more than 500...

Starting 5s A preview of the high school boys basketball season in the A-K Valley: 5 storylines to follow • Nearly half of the boys teams in the A-K Valley begin the season under new management: Bill Flow at Highlands, Dave Pucka at Plum, Dre Corbin at Riverview, Scott Ruppert...

The players for the third annual We Serve First All-Star Classic, sponsored by the We Serve First Foundation, have been released. The event, set for Dec. 7 at Kiski Area High School, will celebrate and recognize the skills of 40 of the top senior girls volleyball players from 20 schools...

The St. Joseph girls basketball team made a run to the WPIAL Class A title game last year. It was a continuation of success for the program that has collected trophies and banners that are on display at Walter Dlubak Athletic Center. Change swept through in the offseason with the...

Matt DeHart is quite familiar with the St. Joseph boys basketball team and many of its players. The new Spartans coach served as an assistant last year under Logan Acri. When Acri left the program over the summer, DeHart ascended to the helm and continued to help build the team...

Gateway wrestling coach Ryan Sula said a mix of veteran leadership, returning youthful talent and others coming into the varsity and JV practice room is making for a competitive environment in the lead-up to the start of the season. “It’s always nice to have a high return rate and to...

A dozen swimmers and divers represented Gateway at last year’s WPIAL championships. Coach Glenn Raymer hopes that many, or more, will punch their tickets to the district’s grandest stages at the end of February and the beginning of March. With the work put in during offseason training sessions and club...

ALTOONA — There was no hangover for WPIAL champion Thomas Jefferson on Saturday against District 9 champion Clearfield in a PIAA Class 4A quarterfinal at Altoona’s Mansion Park. The Jaguars forced three turnovers in the first half, took control with four touchdowns before the break and finished off a 35-0...

It was an evening seven years in the making. For the first time since 2017, the Plum High School Sports Hall of Fame celebrated its own with the induction of some of the greatest to ever represent Mustang athletics. Enshrined at a banquet ceremony Nov. 14 at Edgewood Country Club...

Riverview girls basketball coach Jill Catanzaro doesn’t need a lot of time to take roll call before a practice session. With a roster of eight players, creativity in practice is the rule of the day. But Catanzaro said the small roster, which also is youthful with just two seniors in...

Riverview boys basketball coach Dre Corbin joined the program in May and quickly got a feel for what kind of team could take shape for the 2024-25 season. The former assistant for five years at Aquinas Academy, who took over after Phil McGivney stepped down after three seasons with the...

The Western Pennsylvania Soccer Coaches Association boys all-star games will be Nov. 30 at Pine-Richland. The first game features Class A vs Class 2A all-stars at 11 a.m., followed by Class 3A vs. 4A at 1 p.m. Coaches for the teams are Nick Malarbi from Bentworth (Class A), Jon Cantwell...

Former Deer Lakes baseball standout Jake McCaskey has signed a contract with the Washington Wild Things in the Frontier League. The right-handed pitcher, who played four seasons at PennWest Cal (Pa.) and one more at Division I Gardner-Webb, will play for his second pro team in as many seasons after...

Kiski Area girls basketball coach Dave Williamson saw the potential of this year’s team in the work put in during the offseason. “We didn’t have the greatest offseason as a unit going into last season,” said Williamson, who saw last year’s Cavaliers team go 6-16 overall and finish 2-10 in...

The Kiski Area boys basketball team last season fell one win short of a berth in the PIAA Class 5A playoffs. The Cavaliers suffered a two-point loss to Gateway in a seventh-place game with a spot in the state tournament on the line. “That was the third time we played...

In the moments that turned into hours after Friday’s 4-3 loss to District 1 champion Dock Mennonite in the PIAA Class A championship game at Cumberland Valley’s Eagle View Middle School, Springdale girls soccer players remained upbeat despite the disappointment of coming up just short of the title. Coach Marc...

The numbers haven’t been pretty the past couple of seasons for the Gateway girls basketball team since making the WPIAL playoffs in 2020-21. The Gators own just 11 wins the past three seasons and were victorious twice last year in 22 games. The team enters this season hoping to snap...

A senior-laden Gateway boys basketball team was stopped by rival Franklin Regional in last year’s WPIAL Class 5A quarterfinals. But the Gators rallied after the loss, and a dramatic down-to-the-wire home victory over Kiski Area in the seventh-place game propelled them to the state playoffs for the third year in...

The Plum boys soccer team wanted to make waves in the PIAA Class 4A playoffs. It started out well for the Mustangs as they advanced past the first round Nov. 5 with a dramatic penalty-kick shootout win at District 10 champion McDowell. But they were not able to continue the...

The Riverview boys cross country team has been a consistent commodity at the PIAA championships the past several seasons. The Raiders’ runner-up finish in the Class A race Nov. 2 in Hershey was the team’s fifth top-five placement in six years. Riverview hoped to follow up its WPIAL championship performance...