Championships, hall of famers top 2022 sports stories
Bill Hughes/For the Observer-Reporter
Belle Vernon players celebrate on the field with the championship trophy after defeating Neumann-Goretti, 9-8, in the PIAA Class 3A football championship game at Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg.
National Football Foundation
Lgendary Washington & Jefferson and California University head coach John Luckhardt was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame during ceremonies in erarly December that were part of the 64th National Football Foundation Annual Awards Dinner in Las Vegas. One of the winningest coaches in NCAA history across all divisions, Luckhardt had a 225-70-2 record in 27 seasons as a head coach, leading the Presidents and Vulcans to the NCAA playoffs a combined 16 times.
Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter
Mapletown’s football team was a feel-good story in 2022. The second-smallest public school in the WPIAL, Mapletown had its first undefeated regular season since 1968 and won a WPIAL playoff game for the first time in school history.
Fort Cherry head coach Eugene Briggs lifts the runner-up trophy his Rangers earned in the WPIAL Class 2A boys basketball tournament. The Rangers were the top-finishing public school in the tournament and went on to win a game in the PIAA tournament. It was Fort Cherry’s best season since 1961.
Mark Marietta/ For the Observer-Reporter
Mapletown’s Ella Menear shows off the two medals she won at the PIAA Class 2A Swimming Championships at Bucknell University. Menear won a silver medal in the 100-yard backstroke and the gold in the 200 individual medley. Menear, a two-time state champion and four-time WPIAL champion, has committed to swim for the University of Alabama.
PARIS MALONE
Washington Wild Things
Closer Lukas Young and the Wild Things hope to celebrate many victories durign the 2023 Frontier League season.
1. Belle Vernon wins WPIAL, PIAA football titles
Sometimes the best things are indeed worth waiting for, even if it takes several years. The Belle Vernon football team confirmed as much this season.
After falling short of WPIAL championships at the Class 4A level each of the past two seasons – the Leopards lost in the semifinals in 2020 and the championship game in 2021 – Belle Vernon dropped to Class 3A this year and was at the head of the class.
Battle-tested by playing a brutal non-conference schedule, the Leopards won the school’s first WPIAL championship since 1995 with a 24-7 victory over Avonworth in the title game at Acrisure Stadium.
The win put the Leopards in the PIAA playoffs and one thing you have to like about this team is it knows a good thing when it sees it. Belle Vernon defeated Central (Martinsburg) and its high-octane passing attack, 21-17, in the semifinals. The Leopards’ defense shut out Central in the second half.
In the state final, Belle Vernon trailed for much of the game because of fluke touchdown scored by Neumann-Goretti. However, a 16-yard swing pass from quarterback Brandon Laux to running back Quinton Martin went for a fourth-quarter touchdown and gave Belle Vernon a 9-8 lead.
The Leopards’ defense, which did not allow a point in the second half of its final 11 games, secured the win with an epic goal-line stand, capped by a fumble recovery by Aiden Johnson with 37 seconds remaining, giving Belle Vernon its first state championship in school history.
2. Luckhardt to College Football Hall of Fame
At one point, John Luckhardt was the winningest head football coach at both Washington & Jefferson College and California University. He took both programs deep into the NCAA playoffs and finished his career with a 225-70-2 record.
The crowning achievement came this year when Luckhardt was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Luckhardt and the other inductees were honored at the 64th National Football Foundation Annual Awards Dinner in December in Las Vegas.
At Washington & Jefferson, Luckhardt guided the Presidents to two appearances in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, the NCAA Division III championship game (1992 and 1994).
Under Luckhardt’s guidance, W&J won 13 Presidents’ Athletic Conference championships and made 11 appearances in the NCAA Division III playoffs. In 1992, he was named the AFCA National Coach of the Year, and CNN named him the Division III Coach of the Year in 1994.
Luckhardt spent a decade as head coach at Cal following an incredibly successful tenure at W&J. Over his 27 seasons as head coach, he had 11 seasons of double-digit victories.
At Cal, Luckhardt inherited a program that posted a winning record just once in the previous 14 years. He closed his coaching career by leading the Vulcans to five-consecutive appearances in the NCAA playoffs from 2007-11, highlighted by back-to-back-to-back regional championships. Luckhardt helped Cal win at least a share of seven-straight PSAC West titles behind a 42-4 record in divisional play.
3. Ron Burke, Bythemissal
When they made the turn for the homestretch, a big smile crossed the face of Ron Burke.
His 3-year-old gelding, Bythemissal, was opening up and Burke, the horse’s trainer and part owner, knew he had the field.
Bythemissal, which sat in seventh place early, burst down the home stretch and won the Delvin Miller Adios over the track at The Meadows on a perfect Saturday afternoon in July.
Bythemissal paced in at 1:49.4, one second better than the place horse Beach Glass, which left the post as the 4:5 favorite. Pebble Beach and Todd McCarthy finished third.
A month later, the United States Harness Writers Association announced that Burke would be inducted into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame.
Burke, whose stables are located in Fredericktown, has rewritten the definition of the modern trainer while shattering all previous records for trainers in earnings and money – he currently has sent out more than 11,700 winners, 4,900 more than any other conditioner, and the $250 million-plus earnings of his trotters and pacers are nearly double of his closest competitor.
He is a three-time winner of the Glen Garnsey Trainer of the Year award selected by USHWA, in 2011, 2013, and 2018.
The list of champions with whom Burke has been associated could go on for paragraphs, but some top horses would be the highest earner of all-time, Foiled Again ($7.6 million); Hannelore Hanover, the trotting mare who was 2017 Horse of the Year; Mission Brief; and Sweet Lou. His stable has sent out 18 Breeders Crown champions.
Bythemissal also won the 77th Little Brown Jug champion.
The Meadows-based horse, trained by Burke and owned in part by the Burke Racing Stable, Fredericktown, overcame Meadows-based Fourever Boy and driver Dexter Dunn in the stretch to win the $541,550 race in 1:51.1 in front of 42,000 fans.
In addition to the Burke Stable, Bythemissal’s other owners include Eric Good of Denton, MD, Rich Lombardo Racing of Solon, Ohio, and Weaver Bruscemi, Canonsburg.
4. Waynesburg wrestling
One finally broke through; the other defended well for Waynesburg Central High School.
Rocco Welsh came away with his first PIAA Class 3A wrestling title and teammate Mac Church won his second gold medal at the Giant Center in Hershey.
Welsh won a 24-8 technical fall against Dom D’Agostino of Interboro at 172 pounds that looked more like a rough-and-tumble segment of a combat movie.
Welsh exploded on the whistle and held a 6-2 lead over D’Agostino after one period. It was 17-6 after two periods as D’Agostino went up and came down more times than a busy elevator operator.
Church won a 3-1 decision over Matt Repos in a tightly thought out and controlled match at 132 pounds at the PIAA Class 3A Wrestling Championships at the Giant Center in Hershey.
A takedown 1:39 in gave Church, like Welsh a junior, all the points he needed. He added an escape to start the second and gave up a stalling point at the end. Church is now a two-time state champion after taking third place as a freshman.
The defending champion, Waynesburg finished third in the team standings behind Bethlehem Catholic and Nazareth.
5. Mapletown football
Nothing brings small towns together quite like a winning high school football team. That was proven this fall when the communities in southeastern Greene County rallied behind its football team as Mapletown, the second-smallest public school to field a football team in the WPIAL, put up some larege numbers.
Mapletown had an unbeaten regular season, it’s first since 1968, and defeated Leechburg 41-28 in the first round of the WPIAL Class A playoffs. It was the first playoff win in Mapletown history and gave the Maples a school-record 11 wins in George Messich’s 40th season as the Maples’ head coach.
The season ended the following week in the soggy quarterfinals with a loss to South Side Beaver but it didn’t put a damper on the Maples’ accomplishments.
Mapletown was the second-highest-scoring team in Class A (42.7 points per game) was third in scoring defense (13.9 per game) and running back Landan Stevenson led the district in both scoring (317 points) and rushing yards (2,342 yards).
6. Carmichaels native hired as Giants’ GM
The Washington-Greene area has produced quite an impressive list of people with prominent roles in professional sports industry: NFL head coaches, baseball and football hall of famers, a world boxing champion and a Super Bowl MVP. You can add a major league baseball general manager to the list.
In October, the San Francisco Giants hired Carmichaels native Pete Putila as their general manager.
Putila, 33, grew up a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. He played high school baseball at Carmichaels and was a member of the Mikes’ WPIAL championship team in 2005. He worked as a student manager for West Virginia University’s baseball team while earning his degree in sport management.
In 2011, Putila joined the Houston Astros organization as a baseball operations intern. Over 12 years, Putila worked his way up the Astros’ ladder and eventually became the organization’s assistant general manager.
7. Fort Cherry basketball
Fort Cherry has produced some highly competitive and entertaining boys basketball teams over the years, but none of them came close to the records and accomplishments of the Rangers’ 1961 WPIAL and PIAA championship team.
The 2021-22 version of the Rangers, however, drew plenty of comparisons to that Fort Cherry team of six decades ago.
The Rangers put together a magical season, winning a school-record 24 games and advancing to the WPIAL Class 2A championship game and the second round of the state tournament. Though the Rangers lost to Our Lady of the Scared Heart in the district final, they were the highest-finishing public school in the Class 2A tournament.
In the state tournament, Fort Cherry received a home game in the first round and defeated West Middlesex, 61-53.
Behind Observer-Reporter Boys Basketball Player of the Year Owen Norman, second-leading scorer Dylan Rogers and an invaluable leader Maddox Truschel, Fort Cherry went 9-1 in games determined by six or less points. The Rangers made the state tournament for the first time since 1998. Norman scored 40 points in a WPIAL playoff win over California.
8. Menear makes another splash
Mapletown’s Ella Menear won the Class 2A 200-yard individual medley at the PIAA Swimming Championships at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium in March.
Menear’s time in the 100-yard backstroke the next day broke the state meet record, but, so did Bedford’s Leah Shackley, who edged Menear at the finish so the Mapletown swimmer was left with the silver medal. Shackley reset the state mark when she touched the wall in 52.42 seconds. Menear finished in 53.37 seconds.
Menear set two pool records last year in the WPIAL meet at Upper St. Clair and added a WPIAL record with her repeat gold medal in the 100-yard backstroke this year. She finished in 54.10 seconds, breaking the previous time of 54.51 seconds set my Mars’ Margaret Gruber in 2013.
Menear’s accomplishments were even more impressive considering Mapletown doesn’t have a swimming team or pool. Menear swam during meets at Laurel Highlands High School to hit her qualifying marks.
Menear is the first athlete from Mapletown to get a major Division I scholarship since Derek Bochna said yes to Penn State (football and baseball) in 1990. She is also the first PIAA champion Mapletown has had, winning two gold medals over the last two years.
She recently signed to swim in college at Alabama, which she chose over Penn State, Miami of Florida and Liberty.
9. Wild Things season
The summer was a fun time to be a Wild Things fan. Under second-year manager Tom Vaeth, the Wild Things did what they have done many times in their 20-season history by putting a highly competitive team on the field. Washington ran away with the Frontier League’s West Division title – it’s eight division crown – finishing with 62-34 record, which was nine games better than second-place Schaumburg.
The Frontier League even brought its all-star game – the first played since 2019 – to Washington in July with the East Division rolling to an 8-1 victory. The Wild Things were well-represented with a league-high nine players.
However, the Frontier League championship continued to be elusive for the Wild Things as they were swept in a best-of-3 semifinal series by Schaumburg, 11-2 and 7-2.
10. Palone wins 20,000th
Already harness racing’s “winningest” driver, Dave Palone went where no driver has gone before – and quite possibly where no driver ever will go.
Palone collected career win 20,000 when he piloted Brother Dick to victory in the fourth race at Hollywood Casino at The Meadows in June.
Palone, 60, was joined in a jubilant winners’ circle by his mother Jean; wife Bethann; daughters Hannah, Alana and Sophie; grandson Asher; officials of the United States Trotting Association, Penn National Gaming and the Meadows Standardbred Owners Association, as well as dozens of colleagues and fans, including fellow Hall of Famer trainer/driver Dick Stillings.
Palone’s achievement was hailed throughout harness racing. Mike Tanner, USTA executive vice president, called it “unprecedented, amazing, incredible.”