Pine-Richland grad helps Vanderbilt into CWS

For Troy LaNeve, part of the allure of playing baseball at Vanderbilt was the chance to play for a national championship.

When LaNeve was in seventh grade, the Commodores won the title.

When he was in eighth, they were the runner-up.

By ninth grade, LaNeve, offer in hand, decided to commit.

“I remember watching them on TV and thinking how awesome it would be to have the opportunity to play for a national championship,” said LaNeve, a 2019 Pine-Richland graduate. “And to now get that chance is awesome.”

One of LaNeve’s dreams will come true this weekend when he and Vanderbilt begin their quest for a College World Series title in Omaha, Neb. The Commodores (4315), who are among eight teams vying for the title, will play their opening game Saturday against Arizona.

LaNeve is one of two former WPIAL standouts who will play in the event, which will be broadcast on the ESPN family of networks. Mars grad Will Bednar is a standout pitcher for Mississippi State (45-16), which faces Texas in its opener Sunday.

A potential LaNeve- Bednar matchup in the College World Series would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it? The two faced each other in high school, but not college.

“That’s something out of a WPIAL movie. That would be awesome,” LaNeve said.

LaNeve is only a sophomore, but he has carved out a big role over the past month after playing sparingly earlier in the season. But since the middle of May, LaNeve has become a regular in the starting lineup, playing in either left field or as the designated hitter. He was named SEC Player of the Week on May 24 after hitting .429 with two home runs and six RBIs in a series against Kentucky.

Once the NCAA tournament began, LaNeve took his hot bat with him. He batted .363 with a home

run and six RBIs on his way to being named to the alltournament team of the Nashville Regional.

Overall this season, LaNeve is hitting .319 with six home runs and 21 RBIs.

“It’s been a great feeling to finally be able to contribute,” said LaNeve, who won two WPIAL titles at PineRichland. “I think just listening to [ coach Tim Corbin], staying patient and staying ready has played a big role.”

There’s a good chance that many local baseball fans will be keeping an eye on Vanderbilt during the College World Series. Not only because of LaNeve, but because the Commodores feature aces Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter, both of whom have been mentioned as possibly being taken by the Pirates in next month’s MLB draft.

“You can learn a lot from those two guys,” LaNeve said. “They are very professional in everything they do. You have to take mental notes from what you see because there are definitely reasons why they have the success that they do.”

Look for there to be a strong Western Pennsylvania presence in the stands in Omaha. Just hours after Vanderbilt clinched its berth in the College World Series, LaNeve said his mom, Dayna, had thrown on her travel agent hat. Some friends and family will be driving, and others flying.

Don’t be surprised if some are waving Terrible Towels, too.

Said LaNeve, “They always bring a little bit of Pittsburgh with them.”

Chances are Bednar will have many family and friends make the trip, as well. A sophomore right -hander, Bednar will be one of the top pitchers in Omaha. He’s 7-1 with a 3.53 ERA and has collected 113 strikeouts in 74 innings.

A few other graduates from WPIAL schools saw their hopes for making the College World Series fade away in the super regionals. Fox Chapel graduate Patrick Monteverde pitches for Texas Tech, which was eliminated by Stanford. Trent Vietmeier is a Montour graduate who pitches for LSU, but the Tigers were knocked out by Tennessee.

Track and field

North Allegheny graduate Ayden Owens owned the track events in the decathlon at the NCAA championships. Four of the 10 events are contested on the track, and Owens won all of them.

That played a major part in him finishing as the overall runner-up.

A sophomore at Michigan

and the Big Ten champion, Owens finished with 8,114 points, which was second only to Georgia’s Karel Tilga ( 8,261). It earned Owens first-team All-American honors.

Owens swept the track events during the two-day competition. He won the 100meter dash, 400, 110 hurdles and 1,500. Owens’ best field finish came in the discus, where he placed fifth. He finished sixth in the long jump, seventh in the shot put, eighth in the high jump, eighth in the pole vault and 12th in the javelin.

While Owens’ point total was good enough to place second, it did not meet the Olympic qualifying standard of 8,350 points. Owens was hoping to reach that mark for the first time, which would have qualified him to compete for Puerto Rico at this year’s Olympics.

Allderdice graduate Noah Swaby, a sophomore at Penn

State, also competed in the decathlon and finished in 13th place after collecting 7,428 points.

Former Knoch star Jordan Geist earned first-team AllAmerican status in two events. A few hours after finishing eighth in the hammer throw, Geist, a junior at Arizona, placed third in the shot put.

It was Geist’s second thirdplace finish in the shot put at the NCAA championships. He also did it in 2019. His top throw at this year’s championships (66 feet, 11¼ inches) was a season best. Arizona State sophomore Turner Washington (69-2 ¾) won the event and Texas junior Adrian Piperi (67-11 ½) was second.

On the women’s side, Hempfield graduate Maddie Holmberg Nickal produced a season-best 5,864 points to place sixth in the heptathlon. A senior at Penn State, Nickal’s top finishes were in the long jump (second) and shot put (third). Texas A&M junior Tyra Gittens won the heptathlon with a score of 6,285.

Nickal earned first-team All-American status just as she did after finishing in third place in 2018. And in case you were wondering, Maddie Holmberg became Maddie Nickal in December 2020 after she married Bo Nickal, a three-time NCAA champion wrestler at Penn State.

Former Upper St. Clair standout Savannah Shaw, now a freshman at N.C. State, was the only former WPIAL or City League athlete to compete in an individual track event at the championships. Shaw finished 16th in the 5,000-meter run, earning her secondteam All-American status.