Watson wins Ivy League receiving title
Former South Fayette standout Justin Watson was the leading receiver in the Ivy League.
A sophomore at Penn, Watson has 74 receptions for 1,082 yards and nine touchdowns – all league highs – for the Quakers, who won the Ivy League championship with a 6-1 record in league play and a 7-3 overall mark.
In a 34-21 win Saturday over Cornell that clinched the league title for the Quakers, Watson caught nine passes for 133 yards, including touchdowns of 37 and 12 yards.
Watson is averaging 7.4 receptions per game, which ranks fourth among all Football Championship Series players.
“He’s a great kid. He works exceptionally hard,” Rick Ulrich, Penn’s wide receivers coach told reporters. “And he’s got great open-field running ability. He breaks a lot of tackles.”
Veronica Latkso continues to kick up a storm for the University of Virginia.
A sophomore forward from Venetia and a Peters Township graduate, Latsko has been a key player for the Cavaliers (19-1-2), who are the top seed in their regional and will play Rutgers today in the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament.
Latsko has played in 22 games and made nine starts. She is Virginia’s fourth-leading scorer with seven goals and five assists for 19 points. She scored two goals in a two-minute span in the Cavaliers’ 7-1 win over Howard in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Latsko was the 2012 and 2013 Gatorade Pennsylvania Player of the Year while at Peters Township.
• St. Francis (Pa.) freshman Mario Mastrangelo was named to the Northeast Conference All-Rookie team. A Venetia native and Peters Township graduate, Mastrangelo had a big impact on the St. Francis offense in his first season in Loretto. The freshman led the Red Flash and was second in the NEC with 10 goals and 21 points. The 10 goals rank sixth in SFU history and are the most in a season by a Red Flash player since 2004. Mastrangelo scored seven of his 10 goals in NEC play, including hat tricks against Sacred Heart and Central Connecticut.
Mastrangelo swept the NEC Player and Rookie of the Week awards three times.
• Senior forward Jesse Scheirer of California was named to the All-PSAC second team. The Venetia native and Peters Township resident led the Vulcans and ranked third in the conference with 23 points and was tied for third with 10 goals, which was the most by a Cal player since 2009.
Slippery Rock junior defensive tackle Joe Phillips, a Washington graduate, was named first team All-PSAC West Division.
Phillips earned his second straight All-PSAC recognition after being named to second team last fall. A staple in the middle of The Rock’s front four, Phillips recorded 9 ½ tackles for loss and 3 ½ sacks during the regular season. He helped bolster the nation’s best run defense as Slippery Rock, the PSAC champion, allows only 62.9 yards per game on the ground.
In Slippery Rock’s 40-21 victory over Virginia Union in the first round of the NCAA Division II playoffs last Saturday, Phillips had four tackles, one sack and forced a fumble. The Rock will host Assumption in the second round Saturday.
• Bernard Sarra of Monessen is in his third season as Navy’s starting nose guard.
The 6-1, 297-pound Sarra, who played his high school football at Greensburg Central Catholic, has made 26 tackles for Navy, which leads the American Athletic Conference in fewest points allowed (18.4 per game) and total defense (350.3 yards per game).
• Junior tight end Cooper Schroeder, a Canon-McMillan graduate, was the leading receiver for Alderson-Broaddus with 48 receptions for 693 yards and five touchdowns. The 48 catches were 32 more than any other A-B player had during the Battlers’ 7-4 season.
Schroeder had eight receptions for 145 yards and two touchdowns in a 56-21 loss to Charleston (W.Va.). The touchdowns covered nine and 13 yards.
He also had 10 receptions for 109 yards against Georgetown (Ky.) and eight catches for 126 yards and a 37-yard touchdown in the season finale Saturday against Kentucky Wesleyan.
Senior libero Jessica Dorazio of Waynesburg was named to the All-Presidents’ Athletic Conference team. A defensive stalwart, Dorazio received honorable mention for the third consecutive year.
A Cokeburg native and Bentworth graduate, Dorazio had a team-high 479 digs and tied for second on the squad with 19 service aces. Dorazio ended her collegiate career with 1,801 digs and led Waynesburg in the category in each of the past three seasons.
Morgan Kurtz is the second-leading scorer on the Penn State-Beaver women’s team.
A senior guard from Washington and a Trinity graduate, Kurtz is averaging 17 points per game for the Lady Lions and had a season-high 24 points to go with 10 rebounds and three steals in an 82-78 overtime loss to Apprentice. Kurtz, who has scored more than 1,200 career points at Penn State-Beaver, is shooting 43 percent from the field.
North Carolina’s A.C. Headlee, a true freshman from Waynesburg, placed third at 133 pounds at the Hokie Invitational hosted by Virginia Tech. Headlee won his first two bouts in the tournament, including a fall over Joshua Markham of Old Dominion, to reach the semifinals.
For the season, Headlee has a 4-4 record for the Tar Heels, who are coached by Waynesburg native and Olympic bronze medalist Coleman Scott.
• Stanford’s Connor Schram, a redshirt sophomore from Canonsburg and a Canon-McMillan graduate, won the 125-pound title at the Roadrunner Open in Fresno, Calif., Nov. 15.
Schram, who has a 5-1 record for the Cardinal, won four bouts in the tournament including a technical fall over Kyle Anderson of Cal State-Bakersfield in the first round and a first-period pin of Yoshito Funakoshi of Cal Poly in the second round. After winning a 2-0 decision over Zack Fuentes of Drexel, Schram took a 2-1 overtime decision over Sean Russell of Edinboro in the finals.
When Stanford opened the season Nov. 2 with a dual meet against Cal Poly , there were two former Canon-McMillan wrestlers competing. Schram won a 14-5 major decision over Funakoshi and former C-M standout Colton Shorts dropped a 5-3 decision to Stanford’s Maxwell Hvolbek at 157 pounds. Shorts, a junior, has a 6-2 record for Cal Poly. Shorts finished in second place at the Roadrunner Open, earning a pair of 3-1 decision wins and a victory by technical fall.