WPIAL, state champs dot 2025 Hampton Hall of Fame class

By: John Grupp
Saturday, September 13, 2025 | 11:01 AM

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Hampton swimmer Jack Zierenberg won two WPIAL gold medals as a freshman two decades ago and then did something even more unusual.

He quit the team.

“I was pursuing individual goals,” he said. “I did USA Swimming and club swimming. But I really missed high school sports. I definitely wanted to be back and be a part of it.”

Zierenberg, who rejoined the school team as a junior, is returning to Hampton once again. This time it’s to be inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame as part of the seven-member Class of 2025.

“There is something very special about high school sports, and Hampton, in particular,” Zierenberg, a 2007 Hampton graduate, said in early September from his home in Hoboken, N.J. “It’s that shared experience, and that was something I really missed.”

Zierenberg joins a Hall of Fame class that includes a coach and a player with ties to the winningest boys basketball team in school history; a high-scoring two-time WPIAL champion girls lacrosse player; a beloved longtime softball coach; and a football lineman who went on to earn small-school All-American honors.

A state-champion boys soccer coach and the 1990 PIAA co-champion boys soccer team round out the inductees, who will be recognized before the Oct. 3 football game against Indiana at Fridley Field.

“I was extremely grateful and humbled and excited that I was still thought of and remembered after so many years,” said Zierenberg, who lettered four years at Penn State and is a physician assistant in orthopedic trauma surgery in New York City, with a wife and two sons, ages 4 and 1.

Hall of Famer Melinda Maers also missed a season of high school sports, but not by choice. The 2019 Hampton graduate suffered a torn ACL before her senior lacrosse season.

“It was very difficult,” Maers said. “It was not the way I wanted my senior year to go.”

Maers, who scored 123 career goals and helped Hampton to its only WPIAL girls lacrosse titles in 2017 and’ ’18, called the Hall of Fame induction “a big accomplishment.”

“I was very thankful,” she said. “It will be very cool to have your name posted at Hampton High School and to be remembered as a forever athlete there.”

The inductees span multiple decades, from Mike Pschirer (Class of 1984), the postseason hero of the ‘84 boys basketball team that went 27-4 and reached the PIAA championship game, to Matt McAwley (Class of 2009), who coached his alma mater’s boys soccer team to the WPIAL and state titles in 2021.

“It was a very exciting moment,” said McAwley, who played at La Roche and was hired 11 years ago at age 23. “It’s a big honor to be included with so many great athletes and coaches.”

Other coaches being inducted are Ron Fedell, who went 202-194-1 in 23 seasons (2001-23) with the softball program, and Dave Kuniak, a longtime basketball, baseball and football assistant coach who was part of the staff on the ‘84 PIAA hoops runner-up.

Former standout offensive lineman Pete Geis (Class of 1989) also got the call. Geis was an all-Greater Allegheny Conference lineman and went on to become a third-team AP Little All-American at Slippery Rock.

As a freshman, Zierenberg won the WPIAL Class 2A 500-meter freestyle and was on the gold medal-winning 200 medley relay team. He said he “had a good year” competing in USA Swimming events as a sophomore, but there was a shallow feeling.

“Swimming was always an individual sport growing up,” he said. “I was kind of used to being in my own lane. … But high school was something that I very much missed.”

Back with the Talbots as a junior, he won the WPIAL 200 freestyle in meet-record time. As a senior, he won his second WPIAL 500 freestyle gold medal and was state runner-up. He still owns the school record in the 200 free.

Zierenberg said he was “happy and proud and excited” to return to the high school team after his year away.

“You were part of a larger community than just yourself,” he said. “Walking the hallways and feeling a part of it, that was probably just as exciting as the swimming event itself.”

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