Sports briefs 9/27
Boys soccer
Brady Anderson had a hat trick and Trinity overwhelmed Albert Gallatin 13-0 in a Class 3A Section 2 game Thursday night.
Eight different Trinity players scored at least one goal. Blake Pendo, Jacob Wright and Grayson Bradley each netted two goals. Cooper Cincinnati, Jaxson Gillis, Henry Bitz and Owen Clancy each scored one goal.
Goalkeeper Joel Young kept Albert Gallatin off the scoreboard.
N Laurel Highlands scored a second-half goal to rally for a 2-2 tie with Ringgold in Class 3A Section 2.
Ringgold took a 2-1 lead at halftime, getting first-half goals by Cole Scheponik and Izaiah Wilson.
LH scored on a penalty kick with less than 10 minutes remaining in the game.
Girls soccer
Brielle Dillon scored two goals and four other Bentworth players found the net as the Bearcats won 6-0 at McKeesport in a nonsection game Thursday night.
Megan Keturakis, Bella Moyer, Joelie Conkle and Brynn Strnisha had the other goals for the Bearcats.
Baseball
Shohei Ohtani has become the first player to lead Major League Baseball jersey sales at the end of four straight seasons since the sport started tracking figures in 2010, among four players in the top 20 on the two-time World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge was second for the second straight season, MLB and the players’ association affiliate MLB Players, Inc. said Friday. Judge finished third in 2023 and ’24.
Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs was third, up from 16th at the end of last season, and Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña Jr. was fourth, an increase from 11th last year.
San Diego’s Fernando Tatis Jr. was fifth, followed by the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman, Philadelphia’s Bryce Harper, the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and the New York Mets’ Juan Soto.
• The Los Angeles Dodgers have surpassed the 4 million mark in attendance for the second straight year while setting a franchise attendance record.
The team ended the 2026 regular reason with total home attendance of 4,034,219, averaging 49,805 per game. The old mark was 4,012,470 last year, when the Dodgers went over 4 million for the first time in franchise history.
The Dodgers are the first team to draw more than 4 million fans in back-to-back seasons since the New York Yankees did from 2005 to 2008.
The major league record for annual home attendance of 4,483,350 was set by the Colorado Rockies during their inaugural season in 1993.
NHL
Macklin Celebrini was picked as captain of the San Jose Sharks, becoming the youngest player ever to fill that role for the team at the age of 20.
Celebrini was presented the captain’s jersey at a team meeting by former captain Joe Thornton before practice Friday.
“It’s a huge honor,” Celebrini said. “It’s just something that I can’t really take lightly. Obviously, there’s a responsibility that comes with that. But at the same time I’m not really going to change who I am or what I do. Just a huge honor first and foremost and with that comes some responsibility.”
Celebrini takes over the spot that had been vacant since Logan Couture went down with a career-ending injury, becoming the 11th full-time captain in Sharks history.
Couture was given that role for the 2019-20 season and held it through the 2024-25 season even though he didn’t play a single game that year because of a chronic injury to his groin and pelvic area that ended his career.
Celebrini was one of five players who rotated as alternate captains last season but now has the role for the foreseeable future. He is the youngest player to fill the leadership role, with Patrick Marleau previously holding that mark when he was named captain at age 24 in 2004. He is also the youngest current captain in the NHL, edging out 21-year-old Connor Bedard, who was named captain in Chicago earlier this month.
“He’s earned it through the way he works and competes and the way he’s played on the ice and the way he’s handled himself off the ice,” general manager Mike Grier said. “I don’t know if anyone drafts someone at 18 and thinks by the time they’re 20 they’re going to be leading your team and be your captain. But there are those rare special players who do it and Macklin is one of them.”
Celebrini has become the face of the franchise since being drafted first overall in 2024 and quickly developing into one of the game’s biggest stars. He signed a five-year, $94 million extension this summer and is under contract through the 2031-32 season.
Celebrini, who turned 20 in June, has 178 career points for the fifth-most ever for a teenager and his 70 career goals are seventh best for a player before turning 20.
“We’ve seen it since day one, the type of player he is, but also the type of person he is,” coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “The way he leads our group on and off the ice. The guys gravitate towards him.”
Celebrini had 45 goals and 70 assists last season, with his 115 points breaking Thornton’s franchise record of 114 set in 2006-07 and trailing Wayne Gretzky (137 in 1979-80) and Sidney Crosby (120 in 2006-07) for the most in a season for a player before turning 20.
He had the 10th-most points ever for a player who missed the playoffs, recording a point on 46.2% of San Jose goals for the second-best rate in the league behind Connor McDavid (48.9%) and the best ever for a teenager.
He also was the leading goal scorer in the Olympics, with five goals to help Canada win the silver medal.