Friday, October 14, 2011

Friday notebook

I'll be tweeting live from tonight's non-conference game between Avonworth and Beth-Center. You can follow me @TheMikeKovak for occasional updates.

Readers, feel free to send me score updates from your games, and I'll do my best to send them to followers.

Also, please follow @SportsOR, where the O-R sports staff provides score updates throughout the night. Joe Tuscano (@JosephGTuscano) will tweet from tonight's California at Jefferson-Morgan game.

The Avonworth at beth-Center game isn't typical for a late-season non-conference contest. The game will have a significant impact on the seedings for the Class A playoffs. A win for Beth-Center should wrap up a top-five seed as long as the Bulldogs win out. A win for Avonworth could make the Antelopes a top-five or six seed, and would hurt the seedings of other playoff qualifiers from the Tri-County South Conference.

* Trinity will use more two-back sets with the season-ending knee injury to Ty Yocca, but Dalton is pleased with the play of Kyle Dugan.

"Kyle's a different type of runner than Ty, but he's done a good job when we've but him in there," Dalton said. "We'll continue to use him."

* Former Mapletown High School and California University standout Kevin Pincavitch, who advanced as high as Class AA in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, was recently hired as the Waynesburg High School baseball coach.

Pincavitch, a former assistant with the Washington Wild Things, replaces Steve Coss, who had three successful seasons with the Raiders before he resigned in August. Waynesburg reached the WPIAL Class AA championship game this season, and qualified for the state playoffs for the first time since 2001.

Stephen McCaw was the Raiders' starting catcher and the WPIAL Class AA Player of the Year, as selected by the baseball coaches. I recently spoke with McCaw for an upcoming story and talked to him about the hiring.

"He seems like a really good guy and he knows a lot about baseball," said McCaw, a senior. "We're all excited to get the season started."

* Hopewell's Rushel Shell committed to Pitt Friday morning. For the Panthers, it's a big moment as Shell is the first top-rated WPIAL prospect to commit to Pitt in some time.

That said, it hardly means Pitt is set for the next three to four years. I've spoken with a couple old friends from Beaver County who believed it was in Shell's best interest to get away from Western Pennsylvania.

Will he be the next Tony Dorsett? Or the next Brian Davis? Pitt should be happy with something in between.

* Ringgold freshman Kirsten McMichael might already be the best girls cross country runner in Washington and Greene counties.

* Peters Township finished third at the WPIAL Division I boys golf team championship Thursday at Cedarbrook.

The Indians won the title in 2010 and were favored to do so again, but lost to section rival Upper St. Clair. For Peters Township, the fact that not winning a WPIAL title is news, shows how strong the program has become under head coach David Kuhn.

"When I first got here, we were in a terrible section and couldn't finish any higher than third in it," Kuhn said. "We've made it to the finals eight times over the past nine years. We've come a long way."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your "perfect storm" in Clairton happened last night. Bad weather, bad field conditions, 4 turnovers, 105 yards in penalties, a close halftime score, fighting and arguing in the locker room according to newspaper reports...and they still beat Brentwood 32-0. Worst game Clairton has played since week one 2009 against Laurel and its a 32 point blowout. Unreal...

mike_kovak said...

Unreal indeed.

I'm guessing Clairton wouldn't want to do that against Sto-Rox or Bishop Canevin, but it might not matter anyway.

Tip of the cap to a very dominant team.

Joey Niklas said...

I thought a slip up was due sooner rather than later. These are still 14-18 year old boys and they're only human. Props to the coaching staff for getting things in order during halftime.

prexie said...

great job wash high and great job coaching staff.