A-K Valley high school notebook: New football coaches set to kick off 1st day of camp

By: HSSN Staff
Sunday, August 12, 2018 | 12:03 AM

The start of the fall sports season is at hand.

Monday represents the first official day of football training camp with padded, contact practices, along with the official first day of practice for cross country, field hockey, boys and girls golf, boys and girls soccer, girls tennis and girls volleyball.

In football, new coaches Shawn Liotta (Burrell), Tim Burk (Deer Lakes) and Todd Massack (Riverview) will begin their first official training camp practices. Fox Chapel, Freeport and Springdale are coming off playoff campaigns, while a number of local schools will continue the work of replacing large graduating classes.

The Freeport and Knoch girls volleyball teams will begin the defense of their 2017 PIAA championships, while the Springdale boys soccer team is coming off a deep run in the WPIAL and PIAA playoffs.

Golf teams actually will tee off their regular seasons later this week, and girls tennis and football begin next week. The rest of the fall sports can begin regular play Aug. 31.

Belt group

Kiski Area football assistant Aaron Albert won many a belt during his professional wrestling career, and the Cavaliers are incorporating the same mindset into their football workouts.

The Kiski Area coaching staff is awarding a “National Heavyweight Wrestling Champion” belt with the school’s logo to its top worker during summer workouts, with the plans to carry it into the season.

Senior Troy Kuhn won the belt on the opening night of heat acclimatization.

“Everyone always wanted to wear or hold the belts when they’d come over or after shows and stuff,” said Albert, the son of football coach Sam Albert and the Kiski Area baseball coach. “So once I started coaching I came up with the idea of giving a belt since everyone seemed to enjoy it.”

Albert said the team gave away a less-expensive store-bought belt to the “Cav of the Week” last season but decided to upgrade this year.

“They all can’t get over how heavy it actually is and it’s definitely something they look forward to competing for each day,” Albert said of the belt, which he estimates weighs around 8 pounds. “They’ve learned wearing it is easier than lugging it around.”

Knights to remember

Knoch’s 1978 WPIAL football championship team, the only one in school history, headlines the fourth annual Knoch Sports Hall of Fame Class.

The class, announced Friday, also includes Fred Rothen (1969 graduate), Carla (Wetzel) Patarini (1978), Tammie Kelley (1983), Todd Durand (1983) and Nick Reiser (1993).

The 1978 Knoch team finished 11-1, losing by a single point to Freeport during the regular season, and blasted Beaver Falls, 40-15, in the Class AA title game at Pitt Stadium.

Beasts of the East Boros

Former NHL star R.J. Umberger, a Plum native, leads the Class of 2018 for the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, East Boros Chapter. The eight-member class will get inducted Oct. 11 at Edgewood Country Club in Churchill.

Umberger played 11 seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers and Columbus Blue Jackets, scoring 180 regular-season goals.

Plum’s Joe DelloStritto and Bob Flajnik also will get inducted, along with Penn Hills’ Jim Alcorn and Mickey Catello, East Allegheny’s Alfreeda Goff and Dave Loya and Wilkinsburg’s Barbara Russell.

Top Marc

Plum graduate Marc Bucci, who was a three-year team captain for the Pitt-Johnstown men’s soccer program, was named as an assistant coach at his alma mater.

The 2009 graduate was a two-time All-section and an All-WPIAL selection as a senior.

Bucci was an assistant at Pitt-Greensburg in 2017 and coached Gateway from 2014-16. He earned numerous awards in college.

He currently coaches the Allegheny Force Football Club in Pittsburgh.

Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Doug at dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter @dgulasy_Trib.