Sewickley Academy doubles team to play for a trip to states

By: Michael Love
Wednesday, October 3, 2018 | 9:45 PM

The Sewickley Academy girls tennis duo of Victoria Keller and Alina Mattson will play in the consolation finals of the WPIAL Class AA doubles tournament Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at the Oxford Athletic Club in Pine Township.

Keller and Mattson will take on Blackhawk’s Julianna Begley and Chloe Stein with a trip to the PIAA tournament on the line. The top three teams in both AA and AAA move on from WPIAL play.

As the Section 4 runner-up, Keller and Mattson won pro-set matches in the first and second rounds Wednesday before falling to Beaver Area’s Devyn Campbell and Anna Blum 6-2, 7-6 (2) in the semifinals.

Mattson also played in the WPIAL doubles consolation match last year, but she and her teammate were eliminated in straight sets.

The tournament’s top seed Wednesday, Sewickley Academy’s Emma DiSantis and Aleena Purewal, the Section 4 champs, were eliminated by Begley and Stein 10-7 in the pro-set quarterfinals.

QV boys face test in South Side

Mother Nature prevented the Quaker Valley boys soccer team from celebrating senior night on Tuesday.

That game against Hopewell at the high school stadium will be next Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.

A more immediate matchup for the Section 4-AA leading Quakers will be a varsity-only contest at South Side Beaver on Thursday at 6 p.m. Quaker Valley (9-3, 8-0) hasn’t allowed a goal in section play and has surrendered six in 12 games overall.

North Catholic (8-1) visits Freedom (7-3) Thursday at 8 p.m. in a matchup of the second- and third-place teams in the section.

The section slate is to conclude Oct. 11, and the WPIAL soccer playoff committee will meet Oct. 17 to set the brackets for the playoffs which are to begin Oct. 20.

Panthers gearing up for conference clash

The Sewickley Academy boys soccer team maintained its lead in Section 1-A with a 4-0 win over Neshannock on Tuesday.

The Panthers and Lancers were among the teams to play as bad weather postponed or cancelled numerous other soccer contests.

With four games left in the section schedule, Sewickley Academy owns an 8-0 record with 24 points, eight points ahead of Riverside (5-1-1) and five ahead of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (6-2-1) in the standings.

The Panthers will visit Riverside on Friday at 3:30 p.m. before a section match at Quigley Catholic on Monday. Tuesday’s section match with Beaver County Christian is senior day at Nichols Field.

The section finale at OLSH is Oct. 11.

Michael Love is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Michael at mlove@tribweb.com or via Twitter @MLove_Trib.

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

Tags: Quaker Valley, Sewickley Academy