College notebook: Levers had Pitt set for landmark season
Levers
McMillon
Dunn
DeRubbo
The Pitt women’s volleyball team played in the NCAA Final Four for the first time last week and one of the Panthers’ key players this season was a Chartiers-Houston graduate.
Kylee Levers was one of the Panthers’ starters. A graduate student, Levers played the important setter position. Entering the national semifinal game against Nebraska at Columbus, Ohio, Levers was second on the team with 590 assists, only 36 off the team lead. Levers was averaging 6.08 assists per set and ranked fourth on the team with 204 digs.
Pitt finished its landmark season with a 30-4 record.
In football
The majority of true freshmen in major college football get redshirted, especially at Power 5 programs. That wasn’t the case for former Peters Township standout Donovan McMillon, who went from the Indians straight onto the playing field for Florida.
McMillon saw playing time this fall at defensive back and on special teams for the Gators.
McMillon, a four-star recruit, played in all 12 games, registering 12 total tackles, including two each against Vanderbilt, South Florida and Florida Atlantic.
Florida will play Central Florida in the Gaspirilla Bowl in Tampa on Wednesday.
n Case Western senior quarterback Drew Saxton was named first team All-Presidents’ Athletic Conference.
A South Fayette graduate, Saxton led all PAC quarterbacks in most passing categories, pacing the league with 3,029 passing yards, 3,060 yards of total offense and 23 passing touchdowns. He completed 61.3% of his passes. Saxton threw for a season-high 462 yards and two touchdowns against Saint Vincent and 433 yards and five touchdowns against Waynesburg.
n Another former South Fayette quarterback, Jamie Diven, moved into the starting lineup at West Liberty during his redshirt freshman season.
Diven played in six games, completing 78 of 153 passes for 1,108 yards and nine touchdowns. He also ran for two scores.
Diven’s most productive game was against Fairmont State, when he completed 19 of 25 passes for 367 yards and three touchdowns in a 52-31 victory for the Hilltoppers.
n Slippery Rock senior defensive back Dalton Holt was named to the All-PSAC West Division second team.
Holt, a Ringgold graduate, earned his first career All-PSAC award after starting 10 games at the safety position before seeing his Slippery Rock career cut short because of a knee injury early in a Nov. 6 game against California. Despite missing basically two full games, Holt still ranked third on the team in tackles with 59. He also intercepted one pass, forced one fumble and had four pass breakups.
Over his four years with The Rock, Holt started 32 games and racked up 201 tackles and six interceptions.
In basketball
Fifth-year senior forward Mary Dunn has been a key player early in the season for Pitt.
A former standout at Trinity, who transferred to Pitt this year from Youngstown State, Dunn has played in all 12 games for the Panthers and has a pair of double-digit scoring performances.
Dunn opened the season with 11 points and eight rebounds against Radford. Against South Dakota in the Paradise Jam played in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, Dunn scored 10 points, including a pair of three-pointers, and grabbed seven rebounds.
For the season, Dunn is averaging 4.8 points and 3.8 rebounds per game and shooting 31 percent from three-point range.
The Panthers will take an 8-4 record into a game Wednesday (noon) at home against Holy Cross.
n David Collins, who played at First Love Christian Academy in Washington, has switched from South Florida to Clemson.
A graduate transfer, Collins had a double-double in a Nov. 30 game against Rutgers with team highs of 18 points and 10 rebounds. He has scored in double figures in each of Clemson’s last four games.
A guard, Collins is averaging 11.7 points and 6.9 rebounds per game.
n Riley DeRubbo has been an impact newcomer at American University.
DeRubbo, a former Trinity standout and a transfer from Fordham, has played in all nine games for American and is averaging 5.5 points and 2.6 rebounds per game. She is shooting 40 percent from three-point range.
DeRubbo’s season high in points is 12, which she accomplished twice, against Vermont and at Virginia, the latter coming on 4-for-6 shooting from three-point range. She also had a season-high six rebounds against Vermont.
American has a 7-3 record.
n Chartiers-Houston graduate Zameriah Edwards is a freshman guard at Penn State Fayette, where she has started eight of 11 games for the Lions.
Edwards is averaging more than 27 minutes of playing time along with 6.3 points per game. She is shooting 44 percent from the field.
Edwards scored a career-high 13 points on 5-for-7 shooting in a win over Penn State Wilkes-Barre and has a pair of 11-point games.
n Penn State junior guard Makenna Marisa was named the Big Ten Co-Player of the Week for Nov. 14-21.
In a win over Delaware State, Marisa recorded Penn State’s first triple-double as a Big Ten member with 30 points (12-of-16 shooting), 11 assists and 10 steals. All three numbers were career highs at the time. Marisa scored 20 points in the first half.
The junior from McMurray followed that with 29 points, five rebounds and eight assists at Clemson on Nov. 21. Marisa scored 17 points in the first half.
Marisa set another career-high for points in the Nittany Lions’ 68-60 win Saturday over Duquesne. She scored 33 points, which included three three-point field goals and a six-of-seven performance from the free-throw line. Marisa has seven games with at least 20 points and double-figures in all 12 contests.
Marisa is the Nittany Lions’ leading scorer, averaging 21.1 points per game and averages 4.3 rebounds and nearly six assists per game.
n Peters Township graduate Thomas Melonja is in his first season at Humbolt State in Arcata, California after transferring from University of the Sciences.
The 6-6 Melonja is a sophomore forward. He is averaging 6.9 points and 3.2 rebounds per game. He has a pair of 12-point performances and has made 18 of 44 three-point shots.
In wrestling
Former two-time PIAA champion Gerrit Nijenhuis of Canon-McMillan is Purdue’s starter at 174 pounds.
A sophomore, Nijenhuis has a 7-5 record is is 1-2 against ranked opponents. Nijenhuis is ranked No. 19 in the nation at 174 by FloWrestling and No. 20 by TheOpenMat.com.
Compiled by Chris Dugan