Tag: Belle Vernon

Chicks Picks for Week Eight

October 20, 2016

Welcome to Week 8 of the high school football season. The Stretch Run is upon us.  It’s that magical time of year when postseason positions are secured, and the sheep are separated from the goats. Speaking of sheep and goats – each year during the Stretch Run, Chick’s Picks organizes a group fitness activity for the entire MSA Sports crew.  Chick’s Picks believes this team-building exercise plays a crucial role in getting the gang ready for the playoffs.  This year, Chick’s Picks selected Animal Flow as the group activity of choice – a new fitness craze which teaches animal movement training.

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Big Game Hunting for Week Eight 2016

October 19, 2016

Week eight brings with it the answer to a question put forth here back in week one. How will I personally feel about the change to six classifications after seeing it for a season? The answer now, is the same as it was for me at first blush. I hate it, hate it with the fiery passion of 1000 suns, not to put too fine a point on it. It does nothing to accomplish any of the goals it portends to. It is going to exclude some very good teams, possibly great teams from the playoffs and include some very bad teams. Not to mention we are only in week eight and little is left that matters in terms of games of import in the largest classification. Nonetheless, we are nothing if not intrepid here at BGH, so let’s go Big Game Hunting!

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Chicks Picks for Week Seven

October 13, 2016

Welcome to Week 7 of the high school football season. Chick’s Picks had a tremendous performance last week, a career week, in fact – correctly predicting 53 winners.  Each Sunday, Chick’s Picks spends time reflecting on the weekend’s games, analyzing the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Despite her top-notch performance, a few incorrect picks were eating at her.

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Big Game Hunting for Week Seven 2016

October 12, 2016

And now we enter the stretch run on the MSA sports network. Week seven, time to separate the pretenders from the contenders for WPIAL championships. Monster games, not just this Friday night, but all weekend long and, over the next month as we head on the Highway’s to Heinz and Highmark, let's go Big Game Hunting 6 A Northern Seven Conference: #3 Seneca Valley Raiders (2-2)(4-2) vs #2 North Allegheny Tigers (3-1)(5-2) Friday October 14th @ 7:30 at Newman Stadium on the campus of North Allegheny high school broadcast on the MSA Sports Network and the North Allegheny Sports Network by Randy Gore and Rick Meister 

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Big Game Hunting for Week Six 2016

October 6, 2016

The game we all circled back on our calendars when the 2016 WPIAL Football schedule came out is finally here. While normally I frown on even inter-conference games getting into Big Game Hunting, let alone an inter-classification game, this game is different. These two teams have long been the gold-standard for WPIAL football and their meeting this Friday at Neil Brown Stadium this week, cannot be denied as a big event for any fan of WPIAL football over the last two decades. I don’t imagine I will get emails complaining about my choices this week, but as a reminder, those should all now be directed to ChixPix1@msasports.net. For now let’s go Big Game Hunting!

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MSA Sports Friday Night HighLights for Week Three

September 17, 2016

Every Friday night, there are hard decisions to make to whittle down many of the great performances from around the WPIAL into our Top Ten HighLights package. But this Friday night was probably the toughest since it was the busiest night game wise of the entire 2016 season. Of the possible 61 WPIAL football games, 60 were played on 9/16, thus the difficult becomes even more so. Here's what we came up with on a pleasant evening weather wise for the Week Three HighLights. Jordan Crawford - Pine-Richland

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Big Game Hunting for Week Three 2016

September 14, 2016

In my time doing Big Game Hunting I cannot recall any other regular season week in which the top games were so obvious. Week three has it all, consistent Top-Ten battles across five of the six classifications, the two leading passers in the WPIAL, the leading rusher and scorer in the WPIAL, and three of the top six receivers in the WPIAL. All of this saves me the trouble of having to come up with an engaging and interesting opening paragraph, and let’s be honest I was only hitting about .250 at that to begin with so, without further ado, let’s go Big Game Hunting!

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CTK ’16: 4-A Big Nine Conference Preview

August 21, 2016

While realignment created some radically different conferences for the upcoming football season, the 4-A Big Nine bears a tremendous resemblance to the former AAA Big 10 Conference. Eight of those teams made the transition to the Big Nine, while only Yough and Elizabeth Forward moved elsewhere. In their place, Greensburg Salem, formerly of the AAA Greater Allegheny Conference, has joined the section. Thus, many of the rivalries are already in place in the section, and teams and coaches will have a high level of familiarity. A notable difference for this season, though, is that only four teams will earn playoff bids, whereas the conference produced five teams a year ago.

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2016 MSA SPORTS DIAMOND DOLLS

June 24, 2016

Pitchers can dominate the sport of softball. But this year’s Diamond Dolls all-star team is led by pitchers who also were big factors as hitters. The Diamond Dolls is made up of the top 10 players in the WPIAL, regardless of position, and is picked by the MSA Sports staff. Pitchers like Hempfield’s Morgan Ryan, Shaler’s Bri Dobson and West Greene’s Madison also had huge impacts as hitters and led their teams to highly successful seasons. All four WPIAL champions have a player on the Diamond Dolls team. Youth also is served on this team as it includes four sophomores. Here is a look at the Diamond Dolls team. PLAYER OF THE YEAR MORGAN RYAN, HEMPFIELD Pitcher - Senior

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Scholastic Notebook – 05/22/2016

May 22, 2016

Plum’s Alex Kirilloff has a good chance to be selected in the first round of the June 9 Major League Baseball draft. Teams love his bat and also like the way he plays the outfield. At Plum, they also love the way he pitches. Kirilloff has a bright future as an outfielder, but at the present, he is one dominating pitcher. He is certainly one of the best hurlers in the WPIAL. When Plum defeated Peters Township, 2-0, in the WPIAL Class AAAA quarterfinals Thursday, Kirilloff led the way with his hitting – and pitching. He had a double and triple at the plate. But he also pitched six innings , struck out 11 and gave up only one hit.

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