College notebook: Ohio State’s championship is special for J-M graduate
Ohio State’s 34-23 victory over Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff national championship game Monday was secured late in the fourth quarter on a field goal by the Buckeyes.
That capped quite a successful season for Ohio State and a former Jefferson-Morgan standout who is the Buckeyes’ quality control coach for special teams.
Rob Keys is in his third year on the staff at Ohio State after spending 11 years as the head coach at the University of Findlay in Ohio. At Findlay, Keys had a 75-42 record and guided the Oilers to a pair of appearances in the NCAA Division II playoffs.
Keys played quarterback at Jefferson-Morgan, where his father, Bob, was a successful head coach for the Rockets. Keys went on to play college football at West Virginia under head coach Don Nehlen and make his mark with the Mountaineers as a special teams player.
After his playing days, Keys entered coaching and had stints with West Virginia, Indiana State, Slippery Rock and New Hampshire before becoming the head coach at Findlay.
Keys was one of two coaches in the national championship game who are from the local area. Notre Dame offensive line coach Joe Rudolph was a standout player at Belle Vernon.
In basketball
Alyssa Clutter is one of two North Alabama players with a double-double this season and she has accomplished the feat twice.
Clutter, a junior guard from Washington and a Trinity graduate, had a 14-point, 11-rebound outing in a 62-48 win last month at Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Then, in a game Jan. 2 at Bellarmine, Clutter scored 17 points and grabbed a career-high 17 rebounds in a 90-89 win.
Clutter scored a season-high 21 points in North Alabama’s 75-57 victory over Stetson. She made 10 of 16 shots in that game and also grabbed eight rebounds.
For the season, Clutter is averaging 8.1 points and 5.7 rebounds per game. She is shooting 54 percent from the field.
* Maddie Webber scored a team-high 18 points in Villanova’s 66-55 win over DePaul on Jan. 15 and followed it with a team-best 17 points in the Wildcats’ 66-64 win Saturday over St. John’s.
A sophomore guard and a South Fayette graduate, Webber is the second-leading scorer for Villanova, averaging 12.9 points per game. She is shooting 34 percent from three-point range and 83 percent from the free-throw line. Webber scored a season-high 23 points against Princeton in November and has scored in double figures in 11 of the Wildcats’ last 12 games.
* Two of the top three-point shooters in PSAC men’s basketball, Edinboro’s Michael Dunn and Gavin Cote of Clarion, are from Washington County.
A Trinity graduate, Dunn is second in the PSAC in three-pointers made per game at 3.1, only 0.1 behind leader Ernest Shelton of Gannon. Cote, a Peters Township graduate, is seventh in the conference, averaging 2.6 three-pointers per game. Dunn is shooting 39 percent from behind and Cote is connecting on 35.2 percent.
Dunn is averaging 11.2 points per game with a season-high of 22, accomplished twice. Cote averages 10.5 points per game and had a season-high of 28 against Frostburg State in a game played in November.
* Carmichaels graduate Sophia Zalar is the leading scorer for the Penn State Fayette women’s team. A sophomore wing player, Zalar is averaging 18.1 points and 6.9 rebounds per game at Penn State Fayette. She has scored in double figures in each of the Lions’ 15 games and has a season high of 26 points against Penn State Mont Alto.
In wrestling
Lock Haven standout Wyatt Henson, a two-time PIAA champion at Waynesburg, was named the Mid-American Conference Eastern Division Wrestler of the Week on
The honor is the third for Henson.
Henson went 3-0 during the Davison Duals with two of the victories coming via technical fall. Henson won by decision against Brown, before picking up a 21-5 tech fall against The Citadel and 16-1 technical fall against Morgan State.
Henson improved his record to 15-4 overall. He is ranked No. 17 in the nation at 141 pounds in the NCAA Coaches Rankings that were released Thursday.
* Washington & Jefferson’s Jiovanni DeChicchis, a Venetia resident and Peters Township graduate, was named the Presidents’ Athletic Conference Wrestler of the Week on Tuesday.
DeChicchis was one of three Presidents to finish a 3-0 record at W&J’s annual Jim White Duals last Saturday. DeChicchis won three bouts by decision over opponents from Hiram, Marymount and Mount St. Joseph at 165 pounds. He took a 3-2 decision over Hiram’s Seth Holt in a 47-0 Presidents’ victory. In W&J’s 32-13 victory over Mount St. Joseph, DeChicchis logged a 5-1 triumph by decision over Dylan Fritz. In a loss to Marymount, DeChicchis was one of four Presidents to secure a victory when he defeated Xavier Castaneda by a 3-2 decision.
* Pitt’s Luca Augustine, a redshirt junior from Waynesburg, has an 11-5 record wrestling at 171 pounds.
Augustine is 6-3 in dual meets, has won three times by technical fall and has five victories over ranked opponents. Augustine is ranked 17th by the NCAA Coaches Rankings,
In football
Former California High School standout Jelani Stafford completed his senior season at Connecticut as a defensive lineman and goal-line fullback.
Stafford made 39 total tackles, including two in the Huskies’ victory over North Carolina in the Fenway Bowl.
Stafford had a season-high seven tackles against both Duke and Temple.
He also saw action in goal-line and short-yardage situations as a running back.
In swimming
Wheeling junior Gabby Baiano, a South Fayette graduate, was named the school’s Female High Flyer of the Week on Jan. 8.
Baiano had a strong performance in a dual meet against Lenoir-Rhyne, winning two individual events and helping a Cardinals relay team to a second-place finish.
She kicked things off in the 500-yard freestyle, swimming a time of 5:29.43, beating the rest of the field by eight seconds to earn her first gold medal of the day. Baiano came back in the 200-yard freestyle and earned another gold medal with a time of 2:03.34. Her night would end as the second leg of the 200-yard freestyle relay, where she helped the Cardinals secure second place with a time of 1:52.29. Baiano swam Wheeling’s fastest split at 27.20.