Alle-Kiski Valley high school notebook: St. Joseph hires hoops coach

By: HSSN Staff
Saturday, October 6, 2018 | 11:12 PM

The St. Joseph girls volleyball coach for four seasons, Dennis Jones hoped to add varsity basketball coaching to his resume eventually.

Circumstances finally broke his way.

Jones was hired Thursday as the girls basketball coach at St. Joseph, where he will pull double duty in volleyball and basketball. The 55-year-old father of former Spartans 1,000-point scorer Alex Jones replaces Sally Ackerman.

“I think I was just in the right place at the right time,” Jones said. “I always wanted to get into high school coaching, but I’ve been doing volleyball and it kind of kept me from being able to look elsewhere. And I had my daughter at school, so it was kind of hard to go somewhere else while my daughter was playing. Really this was my first year, my first opportunity to get the high school job, and it sort of fell in my lap and I’m very excited to do it.”

Although St. Joseph is Jones’ first varsity basketball job, he coached at Primetime AAU for six years and middle-school basketball at St. Bonaventure in Glenshaw for five. He also has coached middle school volleyball at St. Bonaventure for seven years.

Ackerman coached St. Joseph for five seasons, leading the Spartans to a 71-48 record and four playoff appearances. St. Joseph reached the WPIAL quarterfinals twice and the WPIAL semifinals once in Ackerman’s tenure, qualifying for the PIAA tournament once.

It’ll be a new era at St. Joseph beyond Jones’ hiring: The Spartans graduated most of their key contributors from the 2017 WPIAL semifinal and 2018 WPIAL quarterfinal teams, including 1,000-point scorers Lizzy Celko (2017 graduate) and Alex Jones and Chloe Kurpakus (2018 graduates). Another expected returning contributor, Nevaeh Ewing, enrolled at Knoch, leaving the Spartans with precious little returning experience.

“We will be starting from pretty much ground zero,” Jones said. “It’s going to be a whole new process for everyone involved. … I’ll try to be a more fast-paced, man-to-man defensive team, but I’ll have to base that on who shows up. I have a few volleyball players who say they’re interested in playing, but I’ve never seen them play basketball.”

Cook in the kitchen

Leechburg’s Dylan Cook had something of a Willis Reed moment in the Blue Devils’ 21-14 win over Frazier on Friday.

Cook injured his ankle during the game and spent a significant amount of time on the sidelines on crutches, but he returned to fire the go-ahead touchdown to Nico Venanzio.

Reed, a former New York Knicks star, memorably hobbled onto the court for Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals despite a severe leg injury and contributed to the Knicks’ ultimate victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.

Nicked up

Perhaps some Deer Lakes boys soccer fans got nervous Friday night when senior Nick Caro went down after a punt during the Lancers’ football game against Freeport. Caro is the starting center back for the soccer team, which stands one win shy of clinching its first section title since 2003.

Caro came back strong, and he showed there was nothing wrong with his leg. He booted a career-long 41-yard field goal in the fourth quarter, giving the Lancers a 10-7 lead in their eventual 14-10 loss.

Slow ride

After an undefeated 2017 season that included its second Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Softball League championship in three years, Plum’s slow-pitch softball team is continuing a fast pursuit of another title.

Plum stood at 8-0 after a doubleheader sweep of Mt. Lebanon on Oct. 2. The team, with 10 seniors on its 11-player roster, will celebrate senior day Sunday with a doubleheader against perennial league power Montour.

This year’s Plum team scored 113 runs through eight games, an average of 14.1 runs a contest.

“This team is not a team who likes to lose, at all,” senior co-captain Allison Blackwell said. “We welcome being the hunted. We love it, 100 percent. It puts a target on your back, and you want to prove you are still good and still the top team. There are some great teams in this league, and we know we have to bring our best game each time.”

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

Tags: Deer Lakes, Leechburg, Plum, St. Joseph