District College category, Page 4
Last-second layup lifts Alabama State over Saint Francis in First Four
DAYTON, Ohio — Amarr Knox’s layup with a second left lifted Alabama State to its first NCAA Tournament win Tuesday night, 70-68 over Saint Francis in a matchup of No. 16 seeds at the First Four. Knox scored 16 points to help the Hornets (20-15) earn a date with No....
Westmoreland Campus Clippings: Hempfield wrestler Vance is national runner-up for Pitt-Johnstown
Pitt-Johnstown redshirt junior Isaiah Vance (Hempfield) finished as a national runner-up at the NCAA Division II wrestling championships in Indianapolis. Vance is now a two-time All-American. The fifth seed, Vance won with a couple of decisions and a major decision to reach the finals, then lost to Maryville’s Ryan Heerman,...
Yough grad Mike Bell hoping to end his Waynesburg baseball career with PAC championship
In his fifth year with the Waynesburg baseball team, Mike Bell had to start over. A grad student coming off a season in which he earned his first Presidents’ Athletic Conference postseason award — honorable mention — Bell and the rest of his returning teammates had to adapt to a...
Kiski Area grad Tatiana Holt settles into middle distance role, helps Slippery Rock claim titles
There’s a good chance Tatiana Holt won’t be listening to Taylor Swift on anymore training runs. Holt, a Kiski Area grad and freshman runner at Slippery Rock, was a little over a mile into a workout during the early stages of cross country season. She was listening to Swift on...
Saint Francis draws Alabama State in First Four game of NCAA Tournament
The Saint Francis men’s basketball team won’t have to wait long to play its first NCAA Tournament game since 1991. The Red Flash will play Alabama State in a First Four game at 6:40 p.m. Tuesday at UD Arena in Dayton, Ohio. The game will be televised on truTV. No....
Wightman family continues to make impact for Thiel women’s lacrosse
Thiel junior Hayden Wightman wasn’t sure she was even going to attend college. If Wightman did go, she wasn’t sure she wanted to follow the family tradition of playing lacrosse. While Wightman was in high school at Shaler Area, she didn’t play any varsity sports. But once her dad took...
Franklin Regional grad makes immediate impact at Washington & Jefferson
Cam Rowell knew he wanted to make a fast impact in the Presidents Athletic Conference. An array of steals, fast-break layups and punctuation slam dunks later, the Washington & Jefferson freshman is a rookie of the year. Rowell, a Franklin Regional graduate, capped his debut basketball season by winning the...
Seton Hill women’s basketball team advances in NCAA Division II tournament
The Seton Hill women’s basketball team took a 15-point lead into halftime and went on to hold back Kutztown, 89-75, in the first round of the NCAA Division II Tournament at Edinboro. The Griffins (24-6), who set a single-season program record for wins since the team joined the NCAA in...
Western Pa. natives help Saint Francis earn program’s 2nd trip to NCAA Tournament
Saint Francis junior guard Chris Moncrief saw Daemar Kelly practice the situation he found himself in during the Northeast Conference championship game hundreds of times. There weren’t always cameras or opponents around, but Kelly wanted to be the guy who could make big shots. Kelly, a Penn Hills graduate, stuck...
Seton Hill women headed to NCAA DII basketball tournament
Seton Hill will play in the NCAA Division II women’s basketball tournament for the first time in 15 years. Accepting an at-large bid Monday, the third-seeded Griffins (23-6) will begin play at noon on Friday against No. 6 Kutztown (22-11) at Edinboro’s McComb Fieldhouse in Erie. Seton Hill beat Kutztown...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Norwin, Franklin Regional grads earn PAC awards
A pair of local products claimed major awards in Presidents’ Athletic Conference basketball. Grove City senior guard Mara Polczynski (Norwin) was named the conference defensive player of the year, while Washington & Jefferson freshman guard Cam Rowell (Franklin Regional) claimed newcomer of the year honors. Polczynski, known for her ability...
After sitting out a year with injuries, Seton Hill softball’s Kassidy Wittig aims to build on award-winning 2024 season
Kassidy Wittig spent her entire freshman season in the Seton Hill softball team’s dugout. It was a fate she could have accepted if she’d been sitting because other players had proven themselves to be more capable. But Wittig didn’t even get a chance to show what she could do in...
Plum grad Johnny Ioannou building on breakout sophomore season as PS Fayette baseball looks to improve
As he was coming up through Plum’s high school baseball program, Johnny Ioannou knew he was being prepared to play at the next level. Under longtime coach Carl Vollmer, the Mustangs had produced a number of successful players, including two, Scott McGough and Alex Kirilloff, who went on to play...
A-K Vally campus clippings: Kiski Area grad Miller swims to gold for Edinboro
Eliza Miller originally began her collegiate career on the new Duquesne women’s triathlon team. But a change was made to a new environment as Miller, a 2024 Kiski Area graduate, returned to a familiar sport. She has made the most of her inaugural season with the Edinboro women’s swim team....
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Former Mt. Pleasant coach Chris Brunson wins 1st games at Waynesburg
Waynesburg started the Chris Brunson era with a pair of wins. Brunson, the former championship-winning coach at Mt. Pleasant, won his first two games as Waynesburg’s new softball coach, 3-2 and 14-0 (5 innings) over Penn State Altoona. Sophomore third baseman Brynn Charnesky (Southmoreland) had a double and RBI in...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Latrobe grad Kiley Myers tosses no-hitter at Marist
Kiley Myers was as efficient as she was dominant in her first college softball no-hitter. The Marist grad student and Latrobe graduate blanked Long Island, 9-0, in five innings with precision. She had only two strikeouts but threw just 51 pitches and allowed one baserunner. The fast-throwing right-hander retired 10...
Former Westminster coach, College Football Hall of Famer Joe Fusco dies at 87
Wilkinsburg native Joe Fusco, a 2001 College Football Hall of Fame coaching inductee and one of the most successful coaches in the history of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, died Saturday. He was 87. Fusco served as Westminster’s head coach from 1972-99 and led the Titans to four NAIA...
Sophomore Kedrick Curtis blossoms in 2nd season with Seton Hill men’s basketball team
To most basketball observers in Westmoreland County, Kedrick Curtis is the kid who hit the miracle shot for Seton Hill. Against Glenville State on the last day of November, Curtis, a sophomore forward from Baltimore, heaved in a three-quarter-court shot as time expired to give the Griffins a 73-72 victory....
Deer Lakes grad Tia Germanich making difficult decision to choose bowling over softball pay off
Tia Germanich grew up in two worlds. One was softball. She played throughout her youth and, eventually, starred for Deer Lakes, earning second-team all-star honors from the Valley News Dispatch after her senior season. With her talent came opportunities to play in college, mostly from Division III schools. The other...
Franklin Regional grad Cam Rowell injects energy into Washington & Jefferson men’s basketball team
After a down year, the Washington & Jefferson men’s basketball team entered the current season hoping to get back on track. In 2022-23, the Presidents of coach Ethan Stewart-Smith went 20-7 overall, 16-4 in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference and reached the conference tournament semifinals. But W&J took its lumps last...
After dreaming of playing baseball, Kiski Area grad Glenn Fowkes becomes key member of Penn State Behrend swimming team
Glenn Fowkes had no intention of swimming at Penn State Behrend. In fact, until he reached high school, he had no intention of swimming competitively anywhere. Fowkes had been a baseball player throughout his youth, and when he reached his freshman year at Kiski Area, he, naturally, tried out for...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Saint Vincent’s Jaden Gales hits career milestone
Junior Jaden Gales came back to Saint Vincent to rejoin his former teammates and make more memories with the men’s basketball team. While he was at it, he pocketed a milestone. Gales, a 6-foot-7 forward, scored his 1,000th career point in the Bearcats’ 78-62 victory over Waynesburg, his team’s sixth...
Inaugural men’s volleyball season off and running in Presidents’ Athletic Conference
Brett Heckathorn has had a lifelong love for volleyball. A player at Butler, he went on to be a captain of Grove City College’s men’s club team. But coaching a men’s volleyball team wasn’t on Heckathorn’s radar. He had served as an assistant for the Grove City women’s team and...
Westmoreland County campus clippings: Seton Hill softball earns season-opening sweep
Yes, softball season is here again. Seton Hill wasted little time getting on the winning track, sweeping a doubleheader from the host team in Mount Olive, N.C. In a 6-5 win in eight innings, senior Brooklyn Fukushima went 3 for 4, homered and drove in three, including the go-ahead RBI...
Strong showing in Vegas, standout freshman class have Saint Vincent women’s bowling confident of title chances
There’s a popular ad campaign that says “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” The Saint Vincent women’s bowling team wants to turn that notion on its head. For several years, coach Jeff Zidek has taken his team to the Collegiate Shoot-Out in Las Vegas. It is, Zidek said, one...
