College notebook: Levers gives Pitt volleyball many assists
Kylee Levers has been part of many wins served up by the Pitt women’s volleyball program.
A senior from Houston and a Chartiers-Houston graduate, Levers has been part of two Atlantic Coast Conference championship teams at Pitt, though she did miss the 2019 campaign after suffering a torn knee ligament that sidelined her for the season.
A setter, Levers returned to play this fall as Pitt played an eight-match ACC schedule. She finished second on the team with 145 assists, including a career-high 33 against Notre Dame. She also had 10 digs in that match. Against Boston College, Levers had a team-high 22 assists.
Pitt had a 4-4 record in its eight “pod” matches.
As a redshirt sophomore in 2018, Levers was a member of the first Pitt team to win an outright ACC championship and helped the Panthers to the NCAA tournament for the third time in as many years.
Basketball
Makenna Marisa is the second in scoring and rebounds and the team leader in assists for Penn State.
A sophomore guard, Marisa, who was the 2019 Observer-Reporter Girls Basketball Player of the Year while at Peters Township, is averaging 14.4 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. She is shooting 41% from the field and 80% (12for-15) from the free-throw line.
Marisa scored a career-high 26 points in a 91-87 loss to Purdue on Dec. 20. She made 12 of 20 shots in that game. In an 82-72 loss to Syracuse, Marisa narrowly missed having a triple-double as she finished with nine points, nine assists and a career-high 11 rebounds.
Junior forward Alexa Williamson is Temple’s second-leading scorer and rebounder.
Like Marisa, Williamson is a former Observer-Reporter Girls Basketball Player of the Year (2018) at Chartiers-Houston.
Williamson is currently averaging 10.2 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. She set her career-high in scoring with a 20-point performance in Temple’s win last Wednesday against Tulsa. She has season highs of 11 rebounds against Florida Gulf Coast and four blocked shots against SMU.
While the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference and several other Division II leagues have opted to delay or not play at all this school year the Great Midwest Athletic Conference is playing, and that’s good news for Ursuline’s Tamara Mathis.
Mathis, a sophomore guard from Canonsburg, is averaging 9.8 points per game for Ursuline, located in Pepper Pike, Ohio. The Arrows have played four games so far this season. Mathis is third on the team with 12 assists and is shooting 37% from the field. She scored a season-high 18 points, to go with 11 rebounds, against Tiffin.
The South Florida men’s team has two players from First Love Christian Academy in Washington.
Davis Collins, a senior guard, is the Bulls’ leading scorer at 13.5 points per game. He averages 4.1 rebounds and is shooting 50% (8-for-16) from three-point range and 48% from the field. Collins has scored in double figures in seven of South Florida’s eight games with a season-high of 18 points against Stetson. He scored 17 points twice, including Tuesday against Wichita State.
Prince Oduro is a junior at South Florida. He is in his first season playing for the Bulls after transferring from Mississippi State. Orduro, a 6-7 forward, has played in seven games and averages 1.7 points per game.
Football
Football has taken Nick Haynes from McGuffey High School to West Liberty University to the University of Mississippi in Oxford. It will take him to one more location.
Haynes, a senior defensive tackle at Ole Miss, will join the football program at North Alabama as a graduate transfer. North Alabama is located in Florence, Alabama.
Haynes spent time at tight end for Mississippi and will play that position with North Alabama, which played a four-game schedule this fall and is a member of the Big South Conference in football.
Haynes played one season at West Liberty before transferring to Ole Miss, where he played in 17 games, including nine in 2019, over three seasons.