PINE GROVE — Optimism abounds with the Lumberjacks. Valley baseball coach Louis Freed has a senior-laden -team this spring. He hopes that experience leads to success on the baseball diamond. The Lumberjacks feature a 12-man roster. Eight seniors are on duty, five of whom are ...

SISTERSVILLE — Falling short of the state tournament is always heartbreaking, but the hard work put in all season might just benefit the Tyler Consolidated baseball program this year. The Silver Knights fell to Wheeling Central in the regional final last year but with only three players ...

PINE GROVE — The Valley Lumberjills are primed for success. Coach Gary Partridge has 11 veterans returning on his 16-player softball squad. Of that group, five are seniors. “I have a great recipe in players that will surely taste great when putting them all together,” Partridge ...

HUNDRED — The numbers are up as well as is the optimism with the Hundred baseball program. Ron Dennis returns to the coaching realm after taking a 16-year hiatus. Dennis coached the diamond sports from 1981 to 2001 and has several goals in mind. “I want our players to learn the game of ...

By JOSH STROPE Sports Editor CHARLESTON — After a four-year drought, Wheeling Central has regained its title as the top team in Class A. Wheeling Central was locked in from start to finish and left no doubt, claiming its first title since 2014 and 12th overall with a 54-40 victory ...

CHARLESTON — At this time last year, Wheeling Central was watching the state title game following a heartbreaking loss to Notre Dame. Wheeling Central was the No. 1 seed and the favorite to win. But the Maroon Knights ran into one of the great postseason performances in state tournament ...

WHEELING — The Dailer Double. Winning a state championship is the ultimate prize in high school sports. Turning the trick twice in the same day is remarkable. That is the exact scenario the Dailer family experienced last Saturday. Former Wheeling Central athletic great Suzie Dailer is ...

Three prep standouts in football, track and wrestling from the Decades of the 1950’s and 1940’s will be enshrined at the 15th annual Ohio Valley Athletic Conference Hall of Fame banquet on Saturday, Aug. 18 at WesBanco Arena in Wheeling. Selected from the 1950’s Decade are Robert ...

CHARLESTON — Wheeling Central’s Brent Price is a Twitter sensation for all his highlight reel dunks. Take that away and what do you get? Well, a guy that is pretty well-rounded and can beat you from the outside, too. Price went 3-for-3 from beyond the arc in the first quarter, scored ...

CHARLESTON -- Wheeling Central is back on top of the mountain in Class A basketball. Wheeling Central earned the 12th boys' basketball state title in school history with an impressive 54-40 victory against Ravenswood on Saturday at the Charleston Civic Center. Owen Gainer paced the Maroon ...

MORRISTOWN — If Bernie Thompson has been asked about his age and relative lack of inexperience in the coaching profession once, he’s been asked it a hundred times. And the former Union Local and Waynesburg standout understands, quite well, why the questions are being posed. After all, ...

CHARLESTON — Wheeling Central is used to shooting in the spacious Charleston Civic Center. Tyler Consolidated is not. So despite a game Silver Knights effort, they just couldn’t get their shots to fall. Tyler was able to hang around for a little more than a half, but then Wheeling ...

WHEELING — Tom Bechtel is a common, down-to-earth guy. For those reasons alone, it wasn’t hard to figure out how the 66-year-old Wheeling resident would react to the news that he was headed for another hall of fame. Already a member of the OVAC Hall of Fame, Bechtel will be enshrined ...

CLEVELAND — Tariq Wilson has never been one to shy away from a challenge. Whether you’re talking about peewee, high school or now major college wrestling, the Steubenville High product, who won four OVAC titles and placed in Division II’s state tournament four times with a pair of ...

WELLSBURG — For the first time since 2014, the Midwestern Athletic Conference from Pennsylvania won the “Clash of Champions” Tri-State All-Star wrestling dual meet with the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference. Tuesday night’s 23rd event at Brooke High School was more of a battle of the ...

WHEELING — Wheeling Central enters familiar territory this week as the boys’ basketball team heads to Charleston as the No. 1 seed in the West Virginia Class A State Tournament. The Maroon Knights are always one of the favorites to make what seems to be a yearly trip. And they are almost ...

MIDDLEBOURNE — It could very well be the Cinderella story of the 2017-18 season. Rick Leach and the Tyler Consolidated boys’ basketball team will make the trip to Charleston for the W.Va. Class A state basketball tournament as a team that was really not on anybody’s radar at the beginning ...

CHARLESTON — Taylor Duplaga remembers it like it was yesterday, the feeling her freshman year as she watched St. Joseph Central celebrate a state championship at the expense of Wheeling Central. It ate at her for three years. But it also fueled her. That feeling has been replaced and this ...

CHARLESTON — St. Joseph Central had the resume. Wins over five Class AAA schools. Sweeping the season series against Class AA runner-up Wyoming East. A schedule that is without a doubt the toughest any team, any class plays. The Class A tournament was just a formality. A spot for the ...

COLUMBUS — Close but not quite there. Three Ohio Valley Athletic Conference wrestlers came up a win shy of becoming Division II state champions as the 81st annual Ohio state wrestling tournament concluded its three-day stay at Value City Arena inside the Jerome Schottenstein Center on the ...