WA baseball overcomes all the odds

It’s WPIAL championship time for spring sports, notable coaching moves are happening, so it’s time for I’m Just Sayin’. • Two undefeated teams (Serra and Eden Christian) have made the WPIAL baseball championships and some others have gotten hot in the postseason to make the title games. But is there any coach who has done a more masterful job with his team this season than West Allegheny’s Bryan Cornell?

Cornell is in his 19th season as West Allegheny’s coach and has his team in a WPIAL championship game for the fifth time since 2007. But this might be his best coaching job because of what his team has had to overcome.

Due to injuries, West Allegheny has played most of the season without three of its top players, including its top two pitchers. Yet, Cornell and West Allegheny will meet Peters Township for the Class 5A title next week.

Maybe that WA on West Allegheny’s jersey and caps will stand for “Winners Again.” Cornell has won three WPIAL titles. The only other time West Allegheny made a championship game without Cornell as coach was 1994. But he was a standout player on that team.

• ESPN did a study in December and found 169 former NFL players were head coaches of high school varsity teams around the country last season, and 175 were assistant coaches. Those numbers make Aaron Smith’s story interesting.

Smith is a well-known former Steeler who last week accepted a WPIAL head coaching job — in boys basketball. Smith was named coach at Eden Christian Academy, a small private school in WPIAL Class 1A. You don’t see many former NFL players who become high school basketball coaches, but Smith’s acceptance of the Eden Christian job shows his love for basketball and working with kids. He was an allstate basketball player in high school in Colorado and has been a basketball assistant at both Eden Christian and North Allegheny.

But Pennsylvania high school basketball has a couple other head coaches who made names for themselves in other sports. Matt Clement was a major-league pitcher for nine seasons before becoming the basketball coach at Butler High, his alma mater, in 2009. Clement has enjoyed plenty of success and won a WPIAL title in 2020.

Hall of Fame pitcher Mike Mussina has been the head boys basketball coach at his alma mater (Montoursville) since 2013.

But back to Smith. Don’t be surprised if he has Eden Christian in the hunt for a WPIAL title. Eden Christian was 13-9 last season, made the WPIAL quarterfinals and has four starters returning from that team.

• The Fryes of Neshannock have to be one of the best brother-sister acts in recent WPIAL baseball-softball history. Andrew Frye is a junior who hit .500 during the regular season and was tied for second in the WPIAL in home runs with five. Addy Frye is a freshman who hit .559 in the softball regular season, led the WPIAL in RBIs with 44, was third in home runs with eight and was fourth in victories with a 12-0 record.

But Andrew Frye was ineligible to compete in the WPIAL playoffs because he transferred from Sharpsville. PIAA rules state an athlete is ineligible for the postseason if they transfer after their sophomore season, unless they meet special circumstances for the transfer. Frye did not

meet the special circumstances. Addy Frye was eligible to compete in the playoffs, though, because she is only in ninth grade.

• Apollo-Ridge’s Brandon Butler led the WPIAL in hitting with a convenient store average of .711. He is only the second WPIAL player to bat better than .700 in the regular season since 2000. Greensburg Central Catholic’s Tommy Pellis hit .745 in 2016.

• The WPIAL will have consolation games in baseball and softball to decide seedings for PIAA playoff spots. But they don’t do the same for basketball. Go figure.

• I mentioned in a column recently that Beaver’s Payton List looked like a good bet to win the Post-Gazette Female Athlete of the Year. She was second-team all-state in basketball, the Post-Gazette’s WPIAL Class 4A Player of the Year and now is absolutely dominant as a pitcher for the Beaver softball team. But I forgot to mention that she was also all-state in volleyball.

• The Pitt basketball team may have been a little late to the show in offering a scholarship to Quaker Valley standout Adou Thiero, who signed with Kentucky. I don’t know if Pitt ever had a real chance of landing Thiero. But Jeff Capel sure isn’t waiting to offer some other young WPIAL players — and that’s a good thing.

On Saturday night, Pitt offered a scholarship to 6-foot-8 sophomore Royce Parham of North Hills. That means Pitt has now offered scholarships to two WPIAL sophomores and two WPIAL freshmen, which is unheard of for the Panthers. The other sophomore with an offer is Lincoln Park guard Brandin Cummings. The freshmen with Pitt offers are Lincoln Park guard Meleek Thomas and 6-10 forward Alier Maluk of Imani Christian.

• Speaking of basketball recruiting, Fox Chapel’s Eli Yofan, a twotime member of the Post-Gazette Fabulous 5, has decided to play at Division I Miami (Ohio). Yofan accepted a walk-on position with the team, but it wouldn’t surprise me if someday he earns a scholarship with the Mid-American Conference school.

• The WPIAL basketball committee met Monday to come up with new section alignments for the next two seasons. The committee’s recommendation for alignment will be voted on by the WPIAL board of directors at a mid-June meeting.

Many want to know if the committee did anything to separate Catholicprivate-charter schools from public schools in the regular season, like had been discussed previously by a special WPIAL committee that looked at the issue. Stay tuned.

• The WPIAL Hall of Fame class of 2022 will be inducted Friday night, but here’s one for the class of 2023: Jack Marin.

Based on his achievements, Marin should’ve been in the WPIAL HOF a long time ago, but no one has supported his case. Well, I am now.

Marin was a sophomore on Farrell’s 1960 state championship team and was terrific as a senior, making first-team all-state for a perennial basketball power back then. But what he did after high school also makes him one of the most accomplished basketball players ever from the WPIAL. He went on to play at Duke, played in the 1964 NCAA championship loss to UCLA and again played on a Final Four team in 1966. He averaged 19 points and 10 rebounds on that 1966 Duke team.

Marin was taken fifth overall in the 1966 NBA draft by the Baltimore Bullets, played in the NBA Finals, made two All-Star Games and averaged 18 points and six rebounds in an 11-year career. I don’t know where Jack Marin is these days, but he should reside in the WPIAL Hall of Fame next year.