High School category, Page 452
Penn Hills club team to get up-close look at professional rugby
The Penn Hills club rugby team has been steadily building its reputation since the program’s inaugural season following the pandemic. Coach Matt Rosemeyer has been looking to help grow the program by encouraging his players to keep involved in the sport. Many members of the Big Red team will be...
WPIAL champion Richland QB earns posthumous Hall of Fame induction
Keith Buterbaugh can still remember running routes in the backyard while his brother Mike threw him the ball. Younger brother Joe Buterbaugh took it all in and was happy to catch some passes when called upon. Both got an up-close look at their brother’s work ethic and passion for sports....
Franklin Regional soccer players join select team for national tournament in Florida
A handful of Franklin Regional boys soccer players were set to compete on a national stage. The 05 BVB International Academy Premier team, coached by former Franklin Regional coach Thomas Louisy, traveled Florida to play in the United States Youth Soccer National Championship Series. The Franklin Regional players on the...
Hampton runner sparkles with Firecracker 5K win
Hampton’s Chris Belch put on a display on the Fourth of July. The 17-year-old won the 18th Hampton Rotary Firecracker 5K, holding off his older brother, Michael, in the 3.1-mile, 126-runner race. “That’s probably the biggest race that I’ve ever won,” the younger Belch said. “I had a lot of...
2023 Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team: Gateway’s Brad Birch
The Gateway football team’s 2022 season ended sooner than expected with a close WPIAL Class 5A first-round home loss to Upper St. Clair at Antimarino Stadium. While the returning Gators players, including senior quarterback Brad Birch, said they learned a lot from that game and from the season overall, they...
Montour edges Belle Vernon for Class 4A Trib Cup in tight race
For years, Montour has come close but could not seal the deal on raising a Trib Cup championship. The chase is now over as we salute and toast the new Class 4A winners from the West Hills. The HSSN Trib Cup is a yearlong competition in 25 varsity sports to...
Westmoreland County high school notebook: Latrobe out to defend 7-on-7 title
Route-runners and defensive backs will exchange moves, and quarterbacks will sharpen their downfield throws Thursday when the 12th Westmoreland County Coaches Association Larry Sellitto Memorial 7-on-7 Passing Tournament returns to Greater Latrobe High School. Sixteen teams will compete for the title beginning at 9 a.m. on four turf fields. Rossi...
Ozanam Summer League celebrates 55 years of big-time basketball, important life lessons
Karen Hall, a former basketball player at UNLV, is the assistant executive director and notable graduate of the Ozanam summer basketball league in the Hill District. She has also coached at Northeastern Illinois and North Carolina A&T. Hall made it known that the Ozanam league would not be around today...
Kiski Area’s Fickes eager to open his 1st season as varsity volleyball coach
Dakoda Fickes is in his first season as the girls volleyball coach at Kiski Area, but not that long ago, he ran some memorable practices at the school’s gym. After the 2022 season, Fickes helped make the inaugural We Serve First All-Star Classic a success. Along with Kiski Area assistant...
St. Francis (Pa.) extends offer to Central Catholic QB Payton Wehner
Central Catholic has more than 100 players signed up for football this season. That includes a rising group of more than 50 freshmen. Once a promising ninth grader himself, quarterback Payton Wehner has come a long way in his time with the Vikings. Suddenly, though, he is all grown up...
2023 Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team: Penn-Trafford’s Zach Tomosovich
Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of 25 profiles of the members of the Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team. Zach Tomosovich didn’t play football until he went to eighth grade “I was always too big to play midget football,” Tomosovich said. “But once I started playing,...
1-and-1 free throws eliminated in basketball rule changes approved by PIAA
The one-and-one free throw has effectively fouled out of Pennsylvania high school basketball. The PIAA board on Wednesday approved an updated rulebook that changes the way fouls are counted and the number of bonus shots a player receives. Starting next season, players who traditionally would receive a one-and-one bonus will...
PIAA expands competitive-balance rule to include baseball, softball, soccer and other sports
The PIAA competitive-balance rule that now targets only football and basketball is expanding to include more team sports and some individual ones. Under the rule, teams that have postseason success and add too many transfers are forced into a higher classification to compete against opponents with larger enrollments. The PIAA...
North Catholic captures Class 3A Trib Cup for 4th straight year
The historic North Catholic victory bell is ringing once again for another championship captured by the red and gold. The Trojans’ athletic success has led to them hoisting the Class 3A Trib Cup for a fourth straight year and the fifth time overall, all in the last six years. The...
2023 Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team: Union’s Braylon Thomas
In 2021, Union finished 4-6 and in fifth place in the Big 7 Conference, missing out on the WPIAL Class A football playoffs. Last fall, recent Scotties success in basketball, baseball and softball must have rubbed off on the football team as No. 10-seeded Union stunned the district with upsets...
No rest for Pitt-bound Lola Abraham as she preps for senior year at Riverview
When Riverview’s Lola Abraham committed to play soccer at Pitt last November, she said the decision was only the beginning and she couldn’t rest on past accomplishments. This summer has been crucial, Abraham said, as she not only works to stay sharp for her future with the Panthers but also...
Transition to Plum volleyball head coach going smoothly for Rachel Satira
The day before Rachel Satira graduated from Seton Hill in May 2019, she got a call from then-Plum girls volleyball coach Kelsey Bonk about coming on board as an assistant and also working with the middle school team. “I was more than happy to join,” said Satira, a standout four-year...
2023 Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team: Bishop Canevin’s Jason Cross
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of 25 profiles of the members of the Trib HSSN Preseason Football All-Star Team. Jason Cross arrived at Bishop Canevin as an undersized freshman and then missed much of his ninth-grade football season with a broken collarbone from a trampoline mishap....
Oakland A’s select Brownsville outfielder Derrick Tarpley in MLB Draft
Brownsville maybe isn’t a familiar stop for some MLB scouts, but the Oakland A’s visited multiple times this spring to see senior outfielder Derrick Tarpley. Other clubs checked on him too, but the A’s sent multiple layers of scouts his way. “They would call me and tell me they were...
Cuthbert, who guided P-T girls to WPIAL title, named girls soccer coach at Greensburg C.C.
Championship-winning coach Derek Cuthbert has returned to lead another Westmoreland County school’s soccer team. Cuthbert, who guided the Penn-Trafford girls to a WPIAL Class 3A title in 2003 when he was the district coach of the year, was named the girls coach at Greensburg Central Catholic. Cuthbert, who hails from...
Neshannock repeats as Trib Cup champion in Class 2A
Back-to-back WPIAL championships and a district-record winning streak in softball led Neshannock to a second consecutive Trib Cup Class 2A championship. There was a lot to cheer about in Lancers Land — including a PIAA championship in competitive spirit and a runner-up finish in the WPIAL finals. The HSSN Trib...
USA Today names 3 WPIAL greats among best high school quarterbacks in history
Who was the best high school quarterback in history? It’s a debate that’ll never be resolved, but three all-time great WPIAL passers made the list when USA Today tried recently to answer that question. In fact, one of them, Beaver Falls legend Joe Namath, was named the all-time best high...
Harrigan, trio of Norwin soccer teams head for hall of fame
The 2023 Norwin Athletic Hall of Fame class reached into the recent past to reconnect with some girls soccer greatness. The 2015, ’16, and ’17 girls soccer teams, and 2018 alum Emily Harrigan, a goal-scoring standout during that time, headline the list of inductees. Norwin won WPIAL titles in 2015...
New Penn-Trafford soccer coach Suchko wants to restore tradition
Ben Suchko played soccer at Hempfield, and he remembers another local program having a reputation at that time. “Penn-Trafford was a juggernaut,” he said. “They were bruisers.” Now the first-year coach at Penn-Trafford, Suchko thinks that luster has worn off, and something needs to change to restore it. “P-T has...
Union makes history by capturing Trib Cup in Class A
History was made in the chase for the Trib Cup in Class A in 2022-23. In the first 19 years of the sports cup competition, Class A has been won by either Sewickley Academy (13 times), Greensburg Central Catholic (five times) or Serra Catholic (once). Union became the first public...
