Hopewell boys tennis ready for playoff run after tough last season

Posted on by krislancaster25

The Hopewell boys tennis team begins play Thursday in the WPIAL Class AA playoffs. The Vikings had to endure a tough season last year, winning just one match along with suffering the loss of their head coach. But with a young, talented team, the Vikings believe they have a shot at the title.

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HOPEWELL TWP. — It’s been a long time since the Hopewell boys tennis team was in a position to make the WPIAL playoffs. In fact, not many seem to know when the last time the Vikings even made the playoffs was.

But on Thursday, the team that won just one match last season will begin play in the Class AA playoffs, coming off a spectacular 13-1 regular-season record.

“The boys are definitely dedicated,” coach Erin Grow said. “They have a real strong desire to win. They’re not just concerned with how they did in a match, they want to know how their teammates did. They’ve really come together as a team.”

Grow took over the head-coaching duties midway through a 2014 season that saw the Vikings go through adversity not just on the court, but off it. Along with winning just one match, the team also had to deal with the death of their coach, Andy Brunette, who died after collapsing while playing tennis in March 2014.

Grow, in her first full season as head coach, knew that turning around a program that hadn’t had much success would be a tough task. Fortunately, she has had plenty of young talent to work with.

The Vikings are made up of eight underclassmen, with almost all of them playing an integral role in the team’s success. Sophomores Eli Loncar and Alex Pfeifer, along with freshman Miles Collins, make up the singles players, and sophomore Anthony DeRose and senior Jake Kiss and junior Anthony Bove and sophomore Turner Wilson are the doubles teams. Bove and Wilson were MAC champions.

“We’ve had a lot of people at the bottom who have stepped up for us, and we’ve been consistent,” Collins said.

Loncar, the team’s first singles player, said the young talent on the roster, along with the playoff berth, should help lay the foundation for even more success moving forward.

“It definitely raises the bar for us, for our standard,” Loncar said. “Usually Hopewell tennis hasn’t been too great, but as of late, we’re one of the top teams in the WPIAL, and definitely in our section.”

The Vikings know that in order to make a run at a WPIAL championship, they will most likely have to go through section opponent Sewickley Academy, which has won every WPIAL team championship since 2004. Sewickley Academy is also the only team to beat Hopewell this season.

But no team has played the Panthers as close as Hopewell has, giving the Vikings confidence that if they were to meet Sewickley in the playoffs, they could take down the team that has dominated Class AA tennis for the better part of 20 years.

“You just have to go out and play your best,” Loncar said. “We took more games off of them than any other team, so just go out there and play the way we’ve been playing. Hopefully, we can get a few more off of them, get three out of five wins and take home a victory.”

Santillo’s drive to be a great catcher has paid off at Robert Morris

Posted on by krislancaster25

Sam Santillo knew early on that she wanted to be a catcher. Her father, Ron Santillo, was a catcher and coached Sam her entire life. She grew up idolizing two time Olympic goal medalist Stacy Nuveman, and even has a pair of Nuveman’s signed cleats at her house. From the time she was eight years old, she worked towards achieving her goal of become a Division I catcher.

The hard work has certainly paid off. Santillo, a senior at Robert Morris and a Lincoln High School graduate, has won the Northeast Conference’s Golden Glove Award, given to the conference’s best defensive player, every year she’s been at Robert Morris.

Santillo is only the second player in NEC history to win the same major postseason award at least three times in her career.

“She has great physical skills behind the plate,” coach Craig Coleman said. “She’s very tough to run on, and it’s tough for a ball to get by her.”

In 165 games at Robert Morris, including 153 starts behind the plate as well as first base, Santillo has committed just six errors. This season, Santillo has committed just two errors in 26 games, leading the Colonials to a 16-14 record, including wins in four of their last five.

She has become not just a steady presence defensively for the Colonials, but also seemingly a coach on the field. Part of that comes from Santillo understanding the game and knowing what to do when certain situations present themselves.

“I always try to just play within myself and do what I know how to do best,” Santillo said. “I try not to play outside myself. For me, I think the biggest thing is game knowledge and always making sure I’m fresh when it comes to situational stuff.”

Santillo’s presence behind the plate also gives the Colonials a calming presence, especially with the pitchers. Santillo has developed chemistry with pitchers Haileigh Stocks, a junior, and Nicole Sleith, a senior who was named the NEC’s Pitcher of the Year in 2012 and 2013.

Along with being familiar with one another on the field, Santillo and Sleith are good friends off the field, and have played together long enough to where they don’t even need to speak to one another to communicate.

“Nicole and I have been working together since we got here,” Santillo said. “We’ve developed a relationship. People kind of laugh sometimes, because she’ll be on the mound and she’ll shake me off, and she’ll already start throwing her pitch because she knows what I’m going to call next. She’s on the same page with me.”

“We trust each other, she reads the batter well and knows what to call, so it’s definitely easier to have her,” Sleith said. “I know when I get frustrated, she’s there to calm me down. She has that key quality, and I think that really helps us.”

Through it all, though, Santillo continues to thrive on the field because she understands her role on the team. She also knows that even though she may struggle offensively, she can still help the team win by doing her job defensively.

“I’m really big on knowing your role,” Santillo said. “If all else fails, make sure you execute your role. I know for myself, defense is my thing. The hitting for me is just icing on the cake. If I’m struggling at the plate, that’s OK, because the hits will come as long as I stay defensively where I’m at. That’s my role and that’s where I’m needed.”

Pittsburgh photography

Posted on by krislancaster25

I really tried to enhance my overall journalism experience this past year, and that included photography. And living in Pittsburgh, there are definitely some great opportunities to get some great photos. Here are a few that I took over the course of the winter.

Blackhawk grad McKay stays calm, focused at Louisville

Posted on by krislancaster25

Former Blackhawk High School baseball player Brendan McKay is probably one of the most dominant athletes I’ve covered in my brief career so far. He’s a freshman at Louisville this year, and I had a chance to catch up with him last week.

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Brendan McKay is no ordinary baseball player. He proved that during his time at Blackhawk, when as a pitcher he had the second-longest scoreless streak in U.S. high school baseball history at 72 1/3 innings, going 30-2 on the mound during his career with the Cougars.

So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that now, as a freshman first baseman and pitcher at Louisville, McKay has continued to thrive.

McKay has started 19 games at first base and is third on the team in batting with a .292 average for the Cardinals, who sit in first place in the ACC’s Atlantic division with a 20-7 overall record and a 10-1 record in conference play. As a pitcher, McKay is 4-0 with four saves and 49 strikeouts in 10 appearances, including seven strikeouts in an 8-3 win over Georgia Tech on Saturday.

“He’s been very consistent,” Lousiville coach Dan McDonnell said. “Some freshman handle it better than others. He’s very even-keel, and he’s handled everything we’ve thrown at him.”

McKay began the year as a middle reliever, before being moved to the closer role. He pitched so well in both roles that he’s now become a weekend starter for the Cardinals behind junior Kyle Funkhouser, a first team ABCA All-American in 2014.

That’s not to say there haven’t been some big adjustments for McKay since arriving at Louisville. Along with the increased workload off the field that comes with being a student-athlete, McKay has had to change his approach on the mound as well.

In high school McKay could overpower most hitters with the fastball. He’s had to use his full arsenal of pitches this year.

“I’ve been using my change-up a little more this season,” McKay said. “When I was in high school I could kind of keep it to the same stuff throughout the game, but here when you get into the late innings and you start facing guys two or three times, you really have to change it up.”

Perhaps McKay’s coming-out party in college came in the third game of a weekend series against Miami (Fla.) on March 8. With the game tied 4-4 in the bottom of ninth and one out, two men on, Miami walked Louisville’s Corey Ray to load the bases for McKay. It was then that McDonnell got a taste of just how calm McKay can be in pressure situations.

“I knew they were going to walk (Ray) to pitch to him, so I walked up to him and just told him to trust his swing and have a good at-bat,” McDonnell said. “He just look at me with no panic, and said ‘OK, Coach.’ He treated it like it was a scrimmage in the fall.”

McKay singled into center field to score the winning run for Louisville. The next weekend, in his first start on the mound against Boston College, he pitched seven innings and struck out nine in a 13-0 Louisville win. He followed that up by striking out 12 batters in his second start against Notre Dame. In his three starts, McKay has struck out 28 batters in 21 innings.

Through it all, McKay’s stellar play and versatility has led some scouts to compare him to some former major leaguers.

“I was talking to a cross-checker, and he said, ‘Man, he reminds me of John Olerud,’” McDonnell said. “The bigger the game, the better he performs. He has the opportunity to be a weekend starter and hit fifth for us, so he’s deep in the fire right now, but he’s playing really well for us.”

McKay doesn’t dwell too much on the success. Instead, he focuses more on how he can improve, specifically his hitting, along with trying to help the Cardinals make it to Omaha and the College World Series.

“I just want to keep getting better,” McKay said. “I haven’t been hitting as well lately, so I’d like to get better at that. As a team we want to make to Omaha and win it. We want to be the ones in the dogpile celebrating at the end of the season.”

Robert Morris product Cabrilo hopes he and Riverhounds have breakout seasons

Posted on by krislancaster25

Got the chance to do this story for the Beaver County Times on former Robert Morris soccer player Miro Cabrilo, who begins his second season with the Pittsburgh Riverhounds this year.

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PITTSBURGH — The transition from college athlete to professional athlete can be a tough one for anybody. Along with playing the game at a faster pace, there are new coaches, new teammates and a new city to which to get acclimated.

For former Robert Morris standout Miro Cabrilo, his transition into professional soccer was a relatively smooth one.

Cabrilo, a forward who scored 16 goals and had 13 assists in 71 career games with the Colonials, begins his second year with the Pittsburgh Riverhounds on Saturday when they kick off the regular season by hosting the Harrisburg City Islanders at Highmark Stadium. In 15 games with the Riverhounds in 2014, Cabrilo scored two goals in a reserve role.

This season, Cabrilo is hoping for a breakout year with an increased role.

“Last year was just about trying to get some experience,” Cabrilo said. “I didn’t expect to play many minutes because I was a younger guy, but this year it’s a different story. I feel like I can use this year to be my breakout year. I expect a lot from myself this year, and I know the team does as well.”

Cabrilo is a skilled goal scorer whose intelligence and work ethic can help a Riverhounds team that struggled to score goals at time in 2014.

First-year coach Mark Steffens said Cabrilo brings a lot to the Riverhounds and will be called upon to contribute in 2015.

“Miro brings a lot of stuff,” Steffens said. “He’s pretty tactically sound, and his movement off the ball is pretty good as well. He’s a good finisher with both his feet and his head, and he brings a pretty good work rate. He’s definitely going to get some minutes.”

Although Cabrilo did have to get accustomed to the different speed from college to professional soccer, it was easy transition to begin his career with the Riverhounds. Along with being familiar with Pittsburgh, Cabrilo trained with the Riverhounds while he was at Robert Morris, so being familiar with a lot of the players help make the transition to the pro game that much easier.

“I started training with them early, so I really got adapted to the level and the players, so it was a quick adjustment,” Cabrilo said. “It was an easy transition. Just knowing the guys from training with them before. When I did come in it was easy, all the boys welcomed me well.”

With a year of experience to his credit, Cabrilo is confident that he can contribute to a Riverhounds team that stumbled to a 9-14-5 record last year and didn’t record their first win until early June. Cabrilo said that this year there is an added comfort level to his game that wasn’t there last season.

“Just getting the experience and getting the feel for the professional game, I feel like this year I’m not new, I know what the feeling is like,” Cabrilo said. “I just want to help the team do the best that we can. It’s my job to put the ball in the back of the net. As long as I can keep doing that and help the team I’ll be happy.”

NOTES

– The Riverhounds went through quite an overhaul in the off-season, as they begin 2015 with a new head coach in Steffens and new team president Richard Nightingale. The team also loses Jose Angulo, the team’s top scorer, and Michael Lisch, who led the team in every goalkeeping category. Steffens isn’t expecting anyone to stand out in terms of offense, but more of a scoring by committee. “I don’t think we have anyone whose going to score 18 goals, we’re going to have to score by committee,” Steffens said. “If we can do that we’ll be a more dangerous team.”

– Steffens also pointed out that it is important for the Riverhounds to avoid the slow start that haunted the team last year, when they began the year 0-6-4. It is also important to take advantage of being at home to start the season. Four of the Riverhounds first five games will be played at Highmark Stadium. “Every year it’s important to get off to a good start,” Steffens said. “This league (the USL) is so tough that if you get into a bit of a hole, it’s really hard to get out of it. There’s no cakewalks, every game is going to be a hard fought battle and a close game. We need to get off to a good start, especially being at home.”

– Steffens is in his first year with Pittsburgh but is no stranger to the USL. Steffens spent 18 years as the coach of the Charlotte Eagles and took the team to the playoffs 14 times. He won two USL championships in Charlotte and was named coach of the year in 2004 and 2008. Steffens stressed that in order to duplicate that success with the Riverhounds, the team will need to stick the core values that Steffens has outlined for them. “A lot of it is having a strong team culture and having a lot of unity on the team,” Steffens said. “Kind of having to step on egos and pride a bit and having them realize that is about everybody, not one person. Our core values are respect, integrity and honesty. We’re trying to make a better, more cohesive unit, and if we can do that we can be successful.”