Thought for the Day — It was baseball utility man Rocky Bridges who once said: “There are three things the average man thinks he can do better than anybody else: build a fire, run a hotel and manage a baseball team.” Good enough for an average man, but our subjects today are way above average.
Higher Education Yahoo (HEY) Awards
It’s been a good couple of weeks for several local student-athletes.
Lipscomb University freshman distance runner Paige Stoner of Pottsville is one of them. Just this past weekend at the Atlantic Sun Conference Championships, Stoner finished second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in a time under the previous Atlantic Sun Conference record and also finished second in the 5,000-meter run. Her performance helped the Lipscomb women’s team to a third-place finish — its highest ever.
Prior to the conference meet, Stoner received her first Atlantic Sun Outdoor Track Athlete of the Week award after winning the 3,000 meters in 9:41.20 and finishing second in the 1,500 meters at the Georgia Invite. Stoner set a Lipscomb freshman record mark in the 1,500, running a 4:32.73.
That performance came on the heels of her 16:26.17 second-place time in the 5,000 meters at the Oregon State University High Performance Meet, a performance earning individual praise from Lipscomb’s head coach. Stoner’s performance was a personal record and a time that in previous years qualified one for the NCAA Division I National Championships.
Earlier this year, Stoner was named Female Freshman of the Year by the Lipscomb Athletic Department and received a Lippy Award in cross-country for best freshman athletic performance.
• Another local student-athlete who elevated his game in the past couple of weeks was Penn College of Technology sophomore right fielder Cole Weachock of Minersville.
Weachock led the fourth-seeded Wildcats to the North Eastern Athletic Conference title in the team’s first year in the conference. Weachock was named conference tournament MVP after going 6-for-12 with five extra base hits (3 doubles, 2 triples) and four RBIs in the tourney. Weachock was also named to the USCAA All-Academic Team.
On the season, Weachock batted .319, leading his team with 38 hits and three triples, and finishing second in doubles (11) and RBIs (23).
• King’s College senior pitcher Ryan Gimbi of Marian was named Freedom Conference Pitcher of the Week by the Middle Atlantic Conference after he pitched a complete-game two-hitter to lead King’s to an 8-3 win over Delaware Valley. Gimbi struck out eight and walked only two, allowing only one runner to reach base after the second inning and at one point retiring 12 batters in a row.
Gimbi is second on King’s modern-era career strikeouts list with 165, just two off the first-place mark. His 46 Ks this season led the team and he twice struck out nine in a game. Opponents batted only .236 against Gimbi, a mark that led the starting staff.
• Two track and field athletes with local roots, who happen to compete in the same event — the javelin — earned honors from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
Azusa Pacific junior Allison Updike of Tamaqua and Shippensburg senior Andrew Korrubin of Pottsville were named to the USTFCCCA’s Division II All-Region teams, Updike in the West Region and Korrubin in the Atlantic Region. The all-region distinction goes to the top five individuals in each event in each region.
Korrubin is headed to nationals and is in the top 10 on the national performance list. Updike, meanwhile, set a new meet record at the recent Bryan Clay Invitational meet, shattering the old record by seven feet with a throw of 168 feet, 7 inches, the second best NCAA Division II mark of the season and 14th ranked on the national performance list.
• North Schuylkill’s Carter Green placed seventh in the discus at Saturday’s Atlantic Coast Conference Championships in Tallahassee, Florida. A freshman at the University of Virginia, Green’s best heave was 46.21 meters. She also took 14th in the shot put with a best throw of 12.42 meters.
• The Landmark Conference recently named its spring Academic Honor Roll and three Susquehanna student-athletes with local ties made the grade — which happens to be a minimum of 3.20. They are sophomore baseball outfielder Taylor Luckenbill of Nativity, sophomore track and field runner Matt Gass of Shamokin and junior track and field runner Brandon Mendoza, also of Shamokin.
On the field, Luckenbill batted .263 this season with four doubles, 12 RBIs, only two errors and eight stolen bases in 11 attempts. Most recently, Gass took fourth place in 400 meters at the conference championships. Gass’ time of 50.14 was a personal best.
Diamond Doings
The Rider Broncs are the regular-season champions of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, thanks in part to the performance of senior pitcher David Hafer of Pine Grove.
Hafer who is 5-1 with a 3.46 ERA and 34 strikeouts in 39 innings and 24 appearances, pitched 1.2 scoreless, hitless innings in the title-clinching win over Monmouth. Earlier, Hafer pitched 4.2 scoreless innings, striking out a season-high seven, in a 6-2 win over Villanova in the Liberty Bell Classic Championship game at Citizens Bank Park.
• University of South Florida sophomore center fielder Juli Weber of Tri-Valley had another solid season, helping the Bulls to the semifinals of the American Athletic Conference Tournament.
Weber, who had two hits in the quarterfinals, batted .321 on the season and was third on the team in runs (29) and hits (50), fourth in RBIs (18) and tied for fourth in home runs (2). She recorded 52 putouts in the field with only three errors.
Track Talk
In the last column’s review of the outcome of the MAC and Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference track and field conference championships, we overlooked some local contestants.
At the MAC’s, DeSales sophomore Ethan Motsney of North Schuylkill ran legs on the men’s fourth place 3,200 and fifth place 1,600 relays. Lourdes graduate and Stevenson junior Grier Melick ran a leg on the men’s 10th place 1,600 relay. In the men’s 10,000-meter run, Alvernia freshman Nicholas Sturm of Hamburg ran 13th.
In the PSAC’s, Kutztown freshman Tristan Dickey of Blue Mountain helped KU’s men’s 1,600 relay team to a fourth-place finish. In the women’s javelin, Shippensburg junior and Mount Carmel grad Heather Bolick was 15th in the javelin.
And, in the Landmark Conference championships, Shamokin grad and Susquehanna junior Renea Broscious threw a personal best 37.99 meters in the hammer throw to take eighth place.
Potpourri
As the gang from Monty Python used to like to say, “And now for something completely different.”
Moravian freshman and Blue Mountain grad Conner Eifert recently competed in the Spartan “Beast” Race in Vernon, New Jersey.
The “Beast” covers 13 miles of mountainous terrain with 32 challenging obstacles. More than 5,000 men and women competed, and Eifert finished second overall and first in his age group with a time of 2 hours and 53 minutes.
Eifert is pursuing a nursing degree at Moravian, a skill which could come in handy in such a “beastly” competition.
(MacLaughlin’s college column appears bi-weekly. To make contributions, email Sports Editor Leroy Boyer at Lboyer@republicanherald.com)