Doug Gulasy stories, Page 6

Phil O’Keeffe is well into his second decade of coaching boys volleyball at Fox Chapel. So his calling the current group of Foxes the youngest team of his tenure is a significant statement. A batch of players that includes one senior, two juniors and more than a dozen sophomores and...

Monday Baseball: In the lone section game on the local schedule, Plum hosts Franklin Regional in Section 2-6A. The Mustangs (2-3, 0-0) began the year in Florida before dropping a pair of one-run decisions last week. Franklin Regional is making its season debut. • Apollo-Ridge and Highlands are looking to...

Brian Jacob embraced the philosophy of wrestling in his life, something that became crucial when he suffered an injury that ended his career and confined him to a wheelchair. The former Valley star broke his neck and suffered spinal-cord damage in an accident while wrestling after his sophomore year at...

Darren Miller grew up admiring Matt McCutcheon’s wrestling accomplishments at Kiski Area. He’ll graduate after matching and breaking some of those achievements. Miller had a season for the Kiski Area record books, beating Franklin Regional’s Colton Camacho by a one-point decision in the 126-pound PIAA Class AAA championship match in...

Alyssa Cappa went after Riverview’s strikeout record during one of her handful of pitching appearances last season. Actually getting the mark came down to not trying for it. Cappa, a junior, tied Jen Kumar’s school record for strikeouts in a game by fanning 17 Valley batters in a 10-7 victory...

Some of the biggest impacts on Christa Harmotto Dietzen’s life came from volleyball, her native Western Pennsylvania and a mission trip she took last spring to Uganda. And so when the opportunity came to connect all three of them in one weekend this summer, she considered it a blessing. Dietzen,...

A pair of Western Pennsylvania hockey teams are shining on the national stage. Pennsylvania Class AA champion Pine-Richland and PIHL Division II runner-up Burrell won their first two games of pool play Thursday and Friday at the USA Hockey High School National Championship in Cleveland, Ohio. Pine-Richland, playing in the...

Alyssa Cappa was in the zone Thursday: the strike zone. The Riverview junior tied the school record with 17 strikeouts in a 10-7 walkoff win over Valley in a nonsection game. Cappa pitched a complete game, giving up six hits and seven runs — a handful of which were unearned....

Knoch and Deer Lakes no longer share a section, but the longtime baseball rivals proved their meetings still can produce plenty of drama. A back-and-forth game ended in a 6-5 Knoch walk-off win Thursday night at Kelly Automotive Park as Sean McGill scored from second base on Braden Tristani’s infield...

Freeport waited a few extra days to finally hit the field for real this baseball season, the weather relenting enough for the Yellowjackets to play a nonsection game Tuesday against Washington. Compared to last season, they’ll take it. While the early-spring weather in Western Pennsylvania remains predictably unpredictable, the sun...

Burrell didn’t get the PIHL championship it sought, but the Bucs are turning their attention from competing against Western Pennsylvania to playing some of the top teams in the country. The Bucs, coming off a 4-3 loss to Ringgold in the PIHL Division II championship game last week, will open...

Burrell didn’t get the PIHL championship it sought all season, but the Bucs are now turning their attention from competing against Western Pennsylvania to playing some of the top teams in the country. The Bucs, coming off a 4-3 loss to Ringgold in the PIHL Division II championship game last...

Another record-breaking swim made Bailey Bonnett an NCAA All-American for the second consecutive season. Bonnett, a Highlands graduate and sophomore at Kentucky, earned first-team All-American honors after finishing fifth in the 200-yard breaststroke at the NCAA championships in Austin, Texas. Bonnett’s time of 2 minutes, 6.91 seconds broke her school...

Jason Nolf became a dominant wrestler with a forward-thinking mindset: He never got caught looking too far ahead, nor did he spend much time thinking about what already passed. But even he took a few moments for reflection upon the end of a decorated collegiate career that ended with one...

MONDAY Baseball: Four nonsection games pairing Alle-Kiski Valley opponents dot the schedule. Armstrong County rivals Apollo-Ridge and Leechburg meet, as do next-door neighbors St. Joseph and Highlands. Burrell and Kiski Area and Valley and Springdale complete the quartet. Softball: Class 6A softball has just two sections, which will create some...

Penn State continued its NCAA wrestling dominance Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena with its eighth team championship in nine seasons, but a few programs broke through in a big way. Rutgers’ Nick Suriano and Anthony Ashnault won titles at 133 and 149 pounds, becoming the first national champions in...

Jason Nolf cracked a bit of a joke upon taking the podium after winning his latest NCAA championship. Asked how it felt to become a three-time national champion, the Kittanning graduate immediately responded: “Not as good as a four-time national champ, but I’ll take it.” In a sense, Nolf became...

Penn State ended the second night of the NCAA wrestling championships poised to win its eighth national title in nine seasons. And the Nittany Lions have a chance to return to State College with a record-tying number of individual champions as well. Jason Nolf (157 pounds), Vincenzo Joseph (165), Mark...

Spencer Lee knew he couldn’t dwell on a reversal he gave up in the second period of his NCAA wrestling semifinal match with Oklahoma State’s Nick Piccininni. He couldn’t afford to. Similarly, Lee couldn’t wallow in disappointment when Piccininni pinned him earlier this season. The Franklin Regional graduate believed to...

The NCAA wrestling tournament finally saw a top seed lose. Iowa’s Alex Marinelli, No. 1 at 165 pounds after winning a Big Ten championship last week, saw his bid for a national title come to a stunning end with a 3-1 loss to Virginia Tech’s Mekhi Lewis in their quarterfinal...

Joshua Shields ticked through a long list of wrestlers he battled at Young Guns Wrestling Club before his college days. To name a few: Jason Nolf, Vincenzo Joseph, Sam Krivus, Luke Pletcher, A.C. Headlee, Mike Kemerer, Spencer Lee, Devin Brown, Micky Phillippi, Gavin Teasdale. “You couldn’t go into that practice...

Nearly 35,000 people came out to PPG Paints Arena on Thursday for the opening day of the NCAA wrestling championships. The NCAA announced attendance for the second session at 17,957, eight more than Thursday afternoon’s session, which drew 17,949. Those in attendance Thursday night witnessed some memorable matches. Biggest upset:...

The first day of the NCAA wrestling championships saw its usual share of dominant wins and eyebrow-raising upsets. And, as is also custom at this time of the year, Penn State ended the night in strong position to win another national title. Although they weren’t immune to the upset bug...

St. Joseph is coming off the two most successful softball seasons in school history, campaigns that established the Spartans as a high-caliber playoff team in WPIAL Class A, and they come into the spring with an important goal. But instead of talking a third consecutive playoff appearance, or a push...

The smallest margin possible kept St. Joseph from reaching the WPIAL baseball playoffs last season, an excruciating result for a program that last reached the postseason at the turn of the millennium. Given that several regulars return, the Spartans aren’t forgetting that result. Nor do they wish to repeat it....