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Dragons, Eagles ready for moment

The Central and Tyrone baseball teams both left around 1:30 p.m. for their PIAA Class 3A quarterfinal games on Thursday. They were going opposite directions that day and may have actually even passed each other on the highway. But these two squads have been on a collision course for years. The Scarlet Dragons have set the standard for high school baseball exellence in the area under coach A.J. Hoenstine and played in four PIAA championship games, winning one in 2017. Tyrone coach Kevin Soellner admits the success Central’s baseball program has achieved is what his team has ...

A real sense of normalcy on display at PNG Field

Welcome back … to normal. It’s been a long, long time coming. From a local perspective, if you want to see the best example of life back to normal, head out to a Curve game. Walk around Peoples Natural Gas Field for a spell. Talk to folks (there were a season-high 4,201 on hand ...

D6 wraps up challenging season

This past week, District 6 finished up the final championship games in baseball and softball of its scholastic year. Anyone reading this before 2020 would probably wonder why that would be the lead of a column, much less even mentioned, as playing out the schedule and awarding championships to deserving teams has always taken for granted. But after the coronavirus pandemic wiped out the PIAA basketball championships during the 2019-2020 winter season and the entire spring high school sports slate last year, everything this year felt like it could be taken away at any ...

Mistake by Bucs’ Craig magnified

Notes and observations from the area sports world as June begins: n With suspect starting pitching and a lack of offensive firepower, the Pittsburgh Pirates are where everybody thought they’d be — at the bottom of the National League Central Division standings. After a surprising 12-11 start, the Pirates lost 21 of their next 29 games entering Monday night’s matchup with the Royals in Kansas City. n The Keystone Cops-like mix-up during last week’s loss to the Chicago Cubs at PNC Park was, to be sure, an egregious mistake on the part of Pirates first baseman Will Craig, who ...

Shot clock may benefit HS hoops

Earlier this week, the National Federation of State High School Associations Basketball Rules Committee voted to allow a 35-second shot clock in high school basketball beginning in the 2022-2023 season. It’s now up to each individual state to decide whether to go forward with it. The next PIAA board meeting is scheduled for May 26, and it isn’t yet clear whether it will immediately be a topic of conversation with the looming state track and field championships and high school baseball, softball, boys volleyball and boys tennis postseasons about to begin. But the topic is ...

NASCAR starting to allow access a year after restart

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Kevin Harvick crossed the finish line at Darlington Raceway a year ago and was struck by the stillness and silence of the empty grandstands. NASCAR was one of the first major sports to resume competition early in the pandemic, setting its own path in a strange new world of health screenings, temperature checks and empty race tracks. “I didn’t think it was going to be that much different, and then we won the race and it is dead silent out here,” said Harvick, who paused to take in the eerie silence that day. “It’s weird. There’s nobody up there.” ...