Sidick gets hall call from Marietta
Chris Sidick, a member of the Washington Wild Things minor-league baseball team. Original Filename: sidick_2_wild_things.jpg PUBLISHED CAPTION: Washington Wild Things photoChris Sidick, a member of the Washington Wild Things minor-league baseball team. Washington Wild Things photoCanon-McMillan graduate Chris Sidick led the Wild Things in runs scored with 71 and had an impressive .444 on-base percentage. PUBLISHED CAPTION: Washington Wild Things photoCanon-McMillan graduate Chris Sidick led the Wild Things in runs scored with 71 and had an impressive .444 on-base percentage.Washington Wild Things photoChris Sidick, a member of the Washington Wild Things minor-league baseball team. PUBLISHED CAPTION: Washington Wild Things photoCanon-McMillan graduate Chris Sidick led the Wild Things in runs scored with 71 and had an impressive .444 on-base percentage.Washington Wild Things photoChris Sidick, a member of the Washington Wild Things minor-league baseball team. Original Filename: 7qy00kgq.jpg PUBLISHED CAPTION: Washington Wild Things photoChris Sidick is running a baseball school in the offseason. Original Filename: 7tv00kbv.jpg PUBLISHED CAPTION: Chris Sidick, a canon-McMillan High School graduate, was hitting .xxxx through xxxxx for the Washington Wild Things in the Frontier League.Chris Sidick, a Canon-McMillan High School graduate, was hitting .327 through Monday for the Washington Wild Things in the Frontier League. Original Filename: 81o00kae.jpg
Following a standout career as a multi-sport athlete at Canon-McMillan High School, Chris Sidick went to Marietta College to play football for then-Pioneers head coach Gene Epley. He was talked into trying out for the Marietta baseball team on a dare.
That dare led to two All-America honors, a seven-year professional baseball career with the Washington Wild Things and a spot in the Marietta College Athletic Hall of Fame. Sidick, a Cecil native, was recently selected as one of four inductees into Marietta’s latest hall of fame class. The inductees will be honored during a ceremony Jan. 23.
“Nobody recruited me out of high school until I got a letter from Coach Epley in early August (of 2001) and a week later I reported for preseason practice,” Sidick recalled. “After school started, I was talking with some of the baseball players and told them I could hit any of their pitchers and they challenged me to prove it. (The coach) agreed to give me a one-day tryout and I went 3-for-4 with a hit off (future major leaguer) Matt DeSalvo. The coach said he’d see me in January.”
Sidick was a four-year letterman in football and baseball. In football, he earned All-Ohio Athletic Conference honors in 2003 and 2004 and was an all-region selection in the latter season. Sidick graduated as the all-time leader in kickoff returns for Division III players with 106 for 2,235 yards.
As an outfielder for the baseball team, Sidick was twice (2004 and ’05) named the OAC Most Valuable Player. He was a three-time first team All-OAC pick and three-time all-region selection. Sidick was a second team All-American as a junior and third team pick as a senior.
Sidick went on to play seven seasons with the Wild Things as a center fielder. He holds the Frontier League’s career record for games played (588), at-bats (2,225), hits (635), runs (434) and the single-season record for triples (16 in 2006). He was inducted into the Frontier League Hall of Fame last July and is the only Wild Things player to have his uniform number retired.
Sidick lives in Canonsburg and is the owner of C-Side Sports Academy, a baseball and softball training school.
Former Wash High standout Alyssa Wise was named Pitt’s Female Athlete of the Week for Dec. 6-12.
Wise, a sophomore, had an impressive performance in the season-opening meet for Pitt’s indoor track team. Wise won the 60- and 200-meter dashes at the Golden Flash Gala hosted by Kent State.
In the 60, Wise defended her title with a 7.61 finish in the finals. She also had the fastest time (7.68) in the preliminaries.
Wise followed her win in the 60 by posting an indoor personal-best in the 200 dash, finishing in first place with a time of 24.92, which was eight-tenths of a second ahead of runner-up Jorian Ordway.
• Westminster senior All-American Marissa Kalsey won the pole vault at the Youngstown State Icebreaker, the indoor season-opening event for the Titans.
Kalsey, a Waynesburg native and former PIAA champion, cleared 12-2 ¾ on her winning vault.
Marietta College defensive back Corey Hunsberger was named to the College Sports Information Directors of America Academic All-America Division III First Team.
A Trinity graduate, Hunsberger is Marietta’s first football academic All-American since 2001. The last time Marietta had a first-team selection was in 1983. A Petroleum Engineering major, Hunsberger is one of only five players on the team with a 4.0 grade-point average.
Hunsberger has played in all 30 games during his three years at Marietta. He was second on the team this fall with 66 tackles. His 36 solo stops also ranked second on the team.
• Alex Campbell, a junior defensive lineman from Canonsburg, helped Colgate advance to the Football Championship Series quarterfinals.
A Canon-McMillan graduate, Campbell played in all 14 games this season for the Raiders and had two double-digit tackle performances. He made 11 tackles in consecutive games against Lehigh and Bucknell to end the regular-season, and had eight tackles, including a sack, in Colgate’s win over James Madison in the second round of the FCS playoffs. For the season, Campbell had 7½ sacks, including two each against Fordham, Lafayette and Bucknell. He also recovered two fumbles against Princeton.
• Junior quarterback T.D. Conway of North Park was named second team All-College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin.
A California High School graduate, Conway led the conference with 2,395 passing yards and was second in the league in total offense. He passed for 12 touchdowns and completed 63.2 percent of his passes. He directed North Park to a 27-24 come-from-behind win over 24th-ranked Illinois Wesleyan. It was North Park’s first win over Illinois Wesleyan since 1985.
Solomon Chishko, a former state champion at Canon-McMillan, has a 12-2 record, including 4-0 in dual meets, as a redshirt freshman at Virginia Tech.
Chishko recently placed fifth at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational. Chishko entered the tournament undefeated and won his first three bouts, including a 10-3 decision over ninth-seeded Tyler Smith of Bucknell.
• Jake Temple, a redshirt freshman at Seton Hill, finished in second place at 197 pounds in the Mount Union Invitational.
A West Middleton native and former PIAA Class AA champion at Avella, Temple won his first two bouts in the tournament by a combined score of 19-4 before winning 4-3 in overtime in the semifinals.
Sean Hilverding, a freshman from Waynesburg, helped Point Park finish 35th in the team standings at the NAIA Championships held last month in Charlotte, N.C. Point Park qualified for the national even by winning the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title.
Hilverding, a native of Spraggs, had a time of 27:43 in the 8,000-meter run at the NAIA meet, which placed him third among all Point Park runners.
Shiloh Simonson, a junior outside hitter from Venetia and a Peters Township graduate, was second on Point Park’s team in kills.
Simonson had 288 kills in 145 games for the Pioneers, who had a 17-24 overall record but were 9-3 in the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Simonson led the Pioneers with 68 service aces and third in blocks with 42.