Local student-athletes garnered some on-field (and off-field, for that matter) honors in several sports since the last column appeared, and earn today’s Higher Education Yahoo awards.
HEY Awards
The first two honorees come from the gridiron and both are defensive ends.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute senior co-captain Anthony Pilla of Marian is finishing out his collegiate career in style, picking up two Liberty League honors in the past week. Pilla was named the league’s Defensive Performer of the Week after the Engineers’ 20-13, ECAC season-ending playoff win over Buffalo State. In that game, Pilla made eight tackles — seven of them unassisted and five for loss — and had three sacks, a quarterback hurry and forced a fumble.
It was performances like that throughout the season that also earned Pilla a first-team All-Liberty League selection and helped RPI to the league crown with a 6-1 conference record and a 9-2 overall mark.
Pilla is first on the team in tackles for loss with 17 for 76 yards and first in sacks with 9.5. He had 55 tackles (33 solo), forced two fumbles and broke up a pass. In a display of consistency, Pilla had at least three tackles in every game, with a season-high 14 against the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.
• Here in Pennsylvania, Shippensburg redshirt freshman Richard Nase of Panther Valley earned himself a first-team defense All-Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference East Division selection.
Nase is the first “rookie” to be named to the first-team all-league defense since 2004, and the first rookie defensive lineman to be honored with an all-conference selection
in more than 20 years. Nase broke the Red Raiders’ school record for sacks with 12 and led the Raiders (8-3) in tackles for loss with 16.5. Nase had 51 tackles overall, six QB hurries, forced a fumble, broke up one pass and defensed another.
• The Middle Atlantic Conference also announced its all-conference football teams. Lycoming junior running back Blake Bowman of Tri-Valley earned a second-team spot, although he had good enough numbers for the first team, while Wilkes senior punter Bryan Mellon of Nativity was an honorable mention selection.
Bowman was the MAC leader in rushing yards with 1,150 yards on 206 carries. He also led the MAC with a school-record 17 rushing touchdowns, had five 100-yard rushing games, with a high of 281 against FDU-Florham, and was the first player in school history to score four TDs in back-to-back games.
Mellon punted 61 times for 2,320 yards, averaging 38.3 yards-per-punt. He recorded two punts over 50 yards, with a season-high, 54-yard boot against Stevenson. He helped to keep opponents pinned down deep in their own territory with 18 punts downed inside the 20-yard line.
• Turning to volleyball, New Mexico State sophomore middle hitter Sasha Lee Thomas of Pottsville earns a HEY after she was named second-team All-Western Athletic Conference. Thomas helped the Aggies to an undefeated regular-season record, the WAC championship tournament title and an automatic NCAA Tournament berth by leading the team in blocks with 114 and recording 201 kills. In the tournament championship game win over CSU Bakersfield, Thomas had 10 kills and two blocks.
• On the basketball floor, Lebanon Valley senior guard Kiely Chaklos of Nativity was named the MVP and member of the all-tourney team after she scored a game-high 19 points to go with a game-high seven assists and seven rebounds in the Dutchmen’s 73-60 upset of No. 14 FDU-Florham in the finals of the Rinso-Marquette Tournament.
Chaklos scored 11 points in the tournament opener, a 70-51 win over Shenandoah, to go over 1,000 points for her career, despite missing all of last season with an injury. Junior teammate Taylor Troutman of Tri-Valley added 10 points in the tournament clincher.
• Susquehanna junior guard Nikki Komara of Lourdes was named the Pepsi Tip-Off Tournament MVP and first-team all-tournament. Komara led the Crusaders with 16 points and 13 rebounds, along with four assists and two steals in the tourney-clinching, 62-55 win over Mt. St. Mary’s College (N.Y.).
• Both the Landmark Conference and the MAC announced their fall Sportsmanship Teams, honoring one student-athlete from each school in each fall sport for character, integrity and sportsmanship on and off the field.
In the MAC, local honorees, and their schools and sports: Misericordia senior cross-country runner Mikael Hause of Mount Carmel; Widener senior cross-country runner Brianna Englert of Pottsville; Lycoming junior football player Blake Bowman of Tri-Valley; Lebanon Valley senior soccer player Cody Manmiller of Hamburg; Arcadia senior soccer player Caitlin Liscinski of Jim Thorpe; and King’s senior volleyball player Elen O’Donnell of Lourdes.
The lone local Landmark Conference selection was Scranton senior volleyball player Molly Loftus of Lourdes, and she also joined three other local student-athletes on the conference Academic Honor Roll. The three are Elizabethtown senior cross-country runner Jacob Jones of Pottsville; and Susquehanna volleyball players senior Sarah Paluck of Tamaqua and junior Marykate Sherkness of Marian. Loftus, by the way, helped Scranton to a 25-12 season and had 82 kills, 12 blocks and 29 digs from her outside hitter/middle hitter position.
• Nativity grad Eric Inama is an assistant football coach at the University of Sioux Falls (S.D.), which finished 9-3 and qualified for the NCAA Division II playoffs. Inama coaches special teams and defensive backs for the Cougars, who lost 23-16 to Henderson State (Ark.) in the first round of the national playoffs Nov. 21.
Cross-Country Kudos
Several local student-athletes competed in cross country championships recently.
The Penn Quakers made their first NCAA Championships appearance since 1975 and finished 24th. Penn’s third finisher, and 165th overall with a time of 31:33.3, was junior Brendan Shearn of North Schuylkill. Earlier this season, Shearn finished 12th at the Ivy League Championships and helped Penn to a second-place Mid-Atlantic Regional finish to secure the team’s spot in the NCAAs with another 12th-place finish.
• Lebanon Valley senior Kelsey Patrick of Tamaqua closed out her stellar career with a 91st-place overall finish at the NCAA Division III Championships. Patrick’s time of 22:18.3 was good enough to make her the second finisher from the MAC. Patrick is Lebanon Valley’s first runner to compete in four NCAA championship races.
• At the NCAA Mideast Regionals, Misericordia senior Mikael Hause of Mount Carmel earned All-Region status by running the third-fastest time in school history (26:00) and finishing 18th overall. The Cougars were 12th out of 52 teams, their best finish ever.
At those same Mideast Regionals, senior Taylor Englert of Pottsville was Widener’s fourth finisher, Wilkes sophomore Michelle Brenneman of Schuylkill Haven was the Colonels’ sixth finisher and Lycoming senior Anna Summers of Shamokin the team’s seventh finisher.
Stellar Soccer
It has been a very successful soccer career for Saint Joseph’s senior goalkeeper Allison Ebling of Blue Mountain. Ebling made a St. Joe’s Atlantic-10 Championship record 10 saves in the Hawks’ 2-1 quarterfinal loss to La Salle, ending St. Joe’s season with a 13-7-0 mark — a program record for wins. Ebling finished her career as the school’s all-time (23) and single-season (12) leader in wins.
In the next column, more basketball, swimming and wrestling.
(MacLaughlin’s college notebook appears bi-weekly. To make contributions, email Sports Editor Leroy Boyer at Lboyer@republicanherald.com)