Minersville hires
boys’ soccer coach
MINERSVILLE — The Minersville Area School Board voted to hire Leonardo Seidel as the head boys’ soccer coach for the 2016 season during its regular meeting Tuesday.
Seidel will take over a program that is returning to varsity status after a 14-year hiatus. Minersville was one of the original Schuylkill League boys’ soccer programs in the early 1990s, but dropped its program after the 2002 season due to a lack of numbers.
The board voted at its meeting Sept. 24 to return the boys’ soccer program for the 2016 season. For the past 14 years, boys interested in playing varsity soccer participated with the North Schuylkill program as part of a co-op agreement.
Hunters harvest
over 2,000 bears
in 1st 2 days
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania hunters have harvested 2,224 bears through the first two days of the statewide bear season, including two weighing more than 700 pounds, the Pennsylvania Game Commission reported Tuesday.
Bears have been harvested in 54 counties during the statewide season so far. The top 10 bears processed at check stations by Tuesday were either estimated or confirmed to have live weights of 614 pounds or more. Two taken Monday joined the state’s top 10.
The first, another 713-pound male, was taken in Granville Township, Mifflin County, at 8:20 a.m. on Monday by Gregory A. Wilson, of Lewistown. Wilson’s bear ties a male estimated at 713 pounds taken in Blair Township, Blair County, by Richard A. Watt, of Gallitizen. He took it a 7:10 a.m. Saturday, the season’s opening day.
Two area hunters have taken bears that are on the top-10 list. Kenneth J. Mehlig, of Weatherly, harvested a 640-pound make in Weatherly Township, Carbon County, while Brad D. Losito, of Hamburg, shot a 618-pound male in Blooming Grove Township, Pike County.
Hunters harvested a total of 3,366 bears during the 2014 season — the seventh-largest harvest in state history. The state’s largest bear harvest — 4,350 bears — happened in 2011, when preliminary first-day totals numbered 2,709.
Through two days, there were 72 bears shot in Wildlife Management Unit 4C, with 20 harvested in Schuylkill County.