Scholastic Notebook – 01/13/2017

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, January 13, 2017 | 4:58 PM

Over the next five days, WPIAL boys basketball has three of the top games of the entire season and all three are on MSA Sports.  While the teams make the matchups big, the players involved make the contests bigger than big.

The big games are Friday and Tuesday. They are:

Pine-Richland (No. 1 in the MSA 6A rankings) at North Hills (No. 3) Friday night at 7:30.

Chartiers Valley (No. 1 in 5A) at Mars (No. 3)  Friday night at 7:30.

Latrobe (No. 2 in 6A) at Penn Hills (No. 4) Tuesday night at 7:30.

Every one of the games feature a matchup of players who are among the best guards in the WPIAL. Don’t be surprised if you see these guards going head to head. North Hills has Nick Smith, who is having a tremendous year and averaging 26.4 points a game. Pine-Richland has Andrew Petcash, a starter since his freshman year who had a few Division I college offers, but didn’t sign during the NCAA early-signing period in November. Petcash averages 18 points a game.

At Mars Friday night, the home Planets feature Robby Carmody, a talented junior guard who has a number of scholarship offers from many big-time college programs. Chartiers Valley has senior Ross Wilkerson, who hit the 1,000-point mark for his career earlier this week.

But the guards story continues Tuesday for the Latrobe-Penn Hills showdown. Latrobe has Austin Butler, a Holy Cross recruit who became the school’s all-time leading scorer Tuesday night with more than 1,500 points. Penn Hills has Sherron Schifino, a senior who is having a big season and who surpassed 1,000 career points a few weeks ago.

Logjam in Section 2

Section 2 in WPIAL Class 6A has seven teams. At the top of the section standings is a party of five.

Nowhere in the WPIAL is there a logjam at the top like Section 2. Peters Township, Baldwin, Mt. Lebanon, Canon-McMillan and Upper St. Clair all have one loss.

The jam will be cleared a little bit after Friday night as Mt. Lebanon plays Peters Township, and Canon-McMillan takes on Baldwin.

Football Coaching News

* Connellsville is looking for a new coach. Tim Karpiak resigned after one season.

* Knoch hired Frank Whalen as its new coach. He takes over for longtime coach Mike King, who resigned after the season. Whalen was an assistant coach under King from 2008-14 and was an assistant at Geneva College the past two seasons.

* Monessen hired Mike Blainefield as coach. He replaces Joe Salvino, who resigned after two seasons. Blainefield, a Monessen graduate, has been a Monessen assistant the past six seasons.

Tags: Connellsville, Knoch