Johnson, Merckle go for gold at NCAA Championships
Two local athletes will be competing this week in the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
Auburn junior Shawn Johnson will be competing in two events and Wake Forest junior Jessie Merckle will compete for the second time at the national meet in the women’s javelin.
A Canon-McMillan graduate, Johnson qualified for the NCAA Championships by finishing in a tie for first place in the high jump at the East Regional in Jacksonville, Fla., two weeks ago. Johnson cleared 6-11¾ and did not have a miss during the competition. Johnson has a personal record of 7-0 ½ in the high jump, which was set in the indoor season.
Johnson also will be competing in the triple jump after placing seventh at the regional with a leap of 52-1¼. He is the first Auburn athlete of qualify in the triple jump since 2004.
The event schedule will make Friday a busy one for Johnson. The high jump competition begins at 7 p.m. Eastern and the triple jump starts 30 minutes later.
A former PIAA champion at Fort Cherry and an Atlantic Coast Conference champion, Merckle placed 12th at least year’s NCAA meet. She qualified for a return trip to Eugene by placing 10th at the East Regional with a throw of 160-1. Merckle, a Hickory resident, holds the Wake Forest school record at 177-0.
The women’s javelin begins 8:30 tonight
Rochester’s Tyler Schmidt, a freshman shortstop from Venetia, was named to the All-Liberty League first team. A Peters Township graduate, Schmidt led the conference in double plays turned and sacrifice bunts (8). His .345 batting average and 10 stolen bases each ranked second on the team.
Penn State Behrend’s John Hlavinka, a junior outfielder from Venetia, was named third team All-Allegheny Mountain Athletic Conference after hitting .367. A Peters Township graduate, Hlavinka led the Lions with 13 stolen bases and was second on the team with 10 doubles, 17 walks and a .439 on-base percentage.
It was the third all-conference honor for Hlavinka.
David Boehme, a freshman at Penn State Behrend, was named the Lions’ co-rookie of the year. A Venetia resident and Seton-La Salle graduate, Boehme played in 33 games as both a position player and a pitcher. He drove in 17 runs and hit five doubles. On the mound, Boehme had a 3-0 record and 2.82 ERA in 44 2/3 innings.
Waynesburg University junior pitcher Brian Resnik was named to the second team of D3Basseball.com’s All-Mideast Region team.
A Burgettstown graduate, Resnik had a 9-3 record and 2.73 ERA with six complete games and a pair of shutouts as the Yellow Jackets’ No. 1 starter. Over 85 2/3 innings, Resnik allowed 78 hits, struck out 86 and walked only 20. He was named first team all-Presidents’ Athletic Conference for the second consecutive year and was named co-PAC Pitcher of the Year this season.
Zac Edmiston, a senior at Bethany, was named first team All-PAC. A California graduate, Edmiston was selected as a utility player and received all-conference honors for the second consecutive year.
Edmiston led the Bison in runs (27) and was second on the team in hits (45). He had a .349 batting average with a team-leading 14 extra-base hits. He ranked in the top 10 in the conference with 12 doubles.
Batting from the leadoff position, Edmiston had 13 multi-hit games and ended his career with a nine-game hitting streak.
Edmiston also was one of Bethany’s best pitchers, making eight starts with a team-leading three wins and three complete games, including a four-hit shutout of Delaware Valley.
Taylor Slaney of Pitt, a senior javelin thrower from Canonsburg, placed third in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championships in Tallahassee, Fla., with a throw of 149-6. The throw qualified Slaney for the East Regional, where she finished 32nd with a distance of 141-9, which came on her first attempt.
Jenna Lucas, a freshman at Central Florida, placed fifth in the javelin at the American Athletic Conference Outdoor Championships held in Stoors, Conn. A former PIAA champion at Fort Cherry, Lucas had a throw of 149-6.
Shippensburg’s Alec Rideout, a freshman from Canon-McMillan, placed fifth in the discus and set a personal record at the PSAC Track & Field Outdoor Championships.
Rideout has a throw of 158-5. He also placed seventh in the shot put with a toss of 50-7 ½.
Hannah Wilcox, a sophomore midfielder from McMurray, started all 20 games for Jacksonville and finished as the Dolphins’ sixth-leading goal scorer. The Peters Township graduate had 19 goals, assisted on six others and had 25 points for the Dolphins, who had a 17-3 record.
Wilcox had three-goal games against No. 4-ranked Florida and Coastal Carolina.
Allison Hurley, a freshman from McMurray, was the fifth-leading scorer for Lindenwood, which advanced to the NCAA semifinals.
Hurley, who played the attack position, started only four games but still scored 23 goals and was credited with 19 assists. She scored the 19 goals on only 41 shots on goal. Hurley had a four-goal game against Adams State.
In Lindenwood’s win over Fort Lewis in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference championship game, Hurley scored three goals and four points.
A school-record eight-goal performance in a win over Muskingum helped John Carroll freshman Gina Vilsack garner Ohio Athletic Conference Player of the Week honors during the final week of the regular season.
A Peters Township graduate, Vilsack had 10 goals and three assists during the week, which also included a two-goal game against Mount Union. Vilsack was the Blue Streaks’ leading goal scorer with 51, which ranked fourth in the OAC. She also was John Carroll’s second-leading scorer (69 points). Vilsak was named first team All-OAC.
Giorgiana Zeremenko, a freshman catcher from Canonsburg, helped Pitt to its best season in the program’s history. Zeremenko batted .217 with three home runs and four doubles in 44 games (14 starts) for the Panthers, who advanced to the championship round of the ACC tournament and participated in the NCAA tournament. Pitt (37-22) made it to the finals of the Ann Arbor Regional before losing to eventual NCAA runner-up Michigan.