Sports briefs
PAC alters spring football schedule
The Presidents’ Athletic Conference has adjusted its spring football schedule.
Case Western Reserve and Thiel recently indicated they will not be playing, leaving the conference with eight schools committed to competing during the abbreviated season.
The initial scheduling format released in September had two five-team divisions (North and South) with four in-division games, followed by a season-ending North Division-South Division crossover game.
With Case Western Reserve and Thiel originally scheduled to compete as members of the North Division, the PAC moved Carnegie Mellon from the South to the North.
The North Division will now be Carnegie Mellon, Geneva, Grove City and Westminster. Bethany, Saint Vincent, Washington & Jefferson and Waynesburg will make up the South Division.
The restructured schedule will begin with crossover games between North and South Division members on Friday, March 19. All eight teams will have two home games and two road games scheduled prior to the Friday, April 23 North-South crossover games.
Waynesburg will open the season March 19 at home against Carnegie Mellon. W&J will begin March 26 at Waynesburg. The Presidents’ first home game will be April 1 against Geneva.
Weyrich named PAC Diver of Year
Washington & Jefferson College freshman Taylor Weyrich put together a performance to remember at the Presidents’ Athletic Conference Diving Championships at Grove City College’s James E. Longnecker Competition Pool.
Weyrich, a McMurray resident, was named the PAC Women’s Diver of the Year after prevailing on the one-meter board and finishing in third place on the three-meter board. She posted a score of 407.80 in the one-meter event Wednesday evening after finishing in third place in the three-meter event (359.95) earlier in the day.
Weyrich is W&J’s first Women’s Diver of the Year award winner since Jennifer Suder won it three-straight times (2013-15).
W&J second-year diving coach Todd Hillman was named PAC Women’s Diving Coach of the Year.
At The Meadows
Whiskey Blu stretched his career unbeaten streak to five with an in-hand victory in Thursday’s Dale McConnell Memorial Trot at The Meadows. Massive Stroke took the other $10,000 opening-leg division in the series for 3- and 4-year-old colts, horses and geldings.
The event honors the memory of Dale McConnell, who earned the nickname “Mr. Trot” for his success developing and campaigning trotters.
Unraced at 2, Whiskey Blu launched his career Jan. 21 and has waltzed through conditions; the Southwind Frank-Kendall Blue gelding has rolled up a combined victory margin of 15-1/4 lengths over those five wins. In the McConnell, Dan Charlino – his pilot for all five starts – sent Whiskey Blu to the point at the quarter. He drew away from The Funk late and defeated him by 2-3/4 lengths in 1:56.3.