Mar 13, 2022 3 min read

ON THIS DATE

March 14

1953 – Three of the 11 winners at the PIAA Wrestling Championships are from Washington County. Trinity’s Joe Shook (112 pounds), Washington’s Nick Petronka (133) and Canonsburg’s Bob DeFelice (154) win titles. Petronka registers his victory in the finals by pinning Dave Bates of Phillipsburg in 30 seconds.

1959 – Waynesburg, with three champions, wins the team title at the WPIAL Wrestling Championships at Washington High School. The Raiders’ Ron Mayle (120 pounds), Sam Fuller (154) and Jim Husk (165) win titles.

1961 – Fort Cherry wallops Wampum 77-56 to win the WPIAL Class B basketball championship at the Pitt Field House.

1967 – The first joint NFL-AFL draft is held. The expansion New Orleans Saints trade the No. 1 overall pick to the Baltimore Colts for quarterback Gary Cuozzo, lineman Butch Allison and a 17th-round draft pick. The Colts select Michigan State defensive end Bubba Smith.

1972 – Denny Tanner scores 29 points and Mapletown overcomes a 10-point first-quarter deficit to beat Sparta, 75-68, in the first round of the PIAA Class C basketball tournament at Westminster College. It’s the first state playoff victory for Mapletown.

1972 – A crowd of only 500 shows up at Connellsville High School to watch the Virginia Squires beat the Pittsburgh Condors, 156-133. Rookie Julius Erving leads Virginia with 33 points.

1974 – Billy Knight scores 34 points as Pitt defeats Furman, 81-78, to advance to the East Regional final against top-ranked North Carolina State.

1978 – Dick Harter, head basketball coach at Oregon the last seven seasons, is hired by Penn State.

1992 – Jefferson-Morgan’s Cary Kolat becomes only the seventh wrestler in PIAA history to win four individual championships and is named the tournament’s Outstanding Wrestler in Class AA for an unprecedented fourth consecutive year. In the process, he raised his PIAA record undefeated streak to 137 matches by beating Chris Bohn of Boiling Springs by injury default at 4:12 before 8,476 at Hersheypark Arena.

1995 – Emily Cokinos scores 21 points and grabs 14 rebounds to lead Ringgold to a 57-47 win over Shaler in the second round of the PIAA Class AAAA girls basketball playoffs.

1997 – Coppin State, a 30-point underdog, pulls off one of the biggest upsets in NCAA basketball tournament history, beating second-seeded South Carolina, 78-75, at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

1997 – Pittsburgh Penguins forward Joey Mullen becomes the first American-born player to score 500 career goals, with a goal in the second period against the Colorado Avalanche. The New York native is the 25th player in NHL history to reach the milestone.

1998 – West Virginia’s Jarrod West banks in his fifth three-pointer of the game with eight-tenths of a second to play to give the 10th-seeded Mountaineers a 75-74 victory over second-seeded Cincinnati in the West Regional in Boise, Idaho.