WJPA Sports

Double-A wrestlers who survived last weekend’s WPIAL, District 5 or District 6 tournaments are gathered at Indiana University of Pennsylvania for the PIAA Southwest Regional Tournament.  Six qualifiers in each weightclass will advance to the PIAA Championships in Hershey. Regional action starts Friday afternoon at 1 pm with finals scheduled for Saturday at 5:30 pm.  We’ll have complete live coverage on WJPA-AM (1450) and online Listen Here.

Triple-A wrestlers have waited since the end of the WPIAL/PIAA Team Tournaments for their individual tournaments to get started.  That wait ends Saturday when the League holds four Section tournaments with the top five placewinners advancing to the WPIAL AAA Championships. You can hear the WPIAL Section 4-AAA Tournament from Chartiers Valley Saturday on WJPA-FM (95.3) and online Listen Here.  Follow all of the individual wrestling tournament action on the WJPA Wrestling Page — Click Here

Note: Our Section 4-AAA wrestling coverage will be interrupted at 12:50 pm for our broadcast of the Trinity/Gateway 5A Basketball Quarterfinal.  We will update action at halftime and return to wrestling immediately following the game. This is the ONLY wrestling coverage interruption of the entire PIAA Individual Championship Series and we appreciate your understanding.

The WPIAL Basketball Quarterfinals got started Thursday night for Girls 2A & 4A, Boys 1A & 3A.  Avella, California and West Greene girls all have quarterfinal match-ups Friday night.  Ringgold and Peters Township boys plus the Trinity girls are all on Saturday’s schedule.  Bracket & Listen links and the complete schedule for our coverage follows.

Girls WPIAL Brackets — — Boys WPIAL Brackets

Friday, Feb. 21–Quarterfinals
1A Girls #2 West Greene vs. #7 Avella, 6:05 pm at Peters Township  WJPA-FM (95.3)
1A Girls #12 California vs. #4 Clairton, 6:30 pm at Charleroi
5A Boys #4 Thomas Jefferson vs. #12 West Allegheny, 7:50 pm at Peters Township  WJPA-FM (95.3)

Saturday, Feb. 22–Quarterfinals
6A Boys #9 Peters Township vs. #1 Butler, 12 noon at Mt. Lebanon
4A Boys #9 Ringgold vs. #1 Highlands, 12 noon at North Hills
5A Girls #3 Trinity vs. #6 Gateway, 12:50 pm at Baldwin  WJPA-FM (95.3)

Washington native Riley Barber is now in the Penguin’s organization. He was acquired in a trade with Montreal. The Penguins acquired him along with forward Phil Varone in exchange for Joe Blandisi and Jake Lucchini. Barber and Varone were both assigned to the Penguin’s AHL affiliate at Wilkes-Barre. The 25 year old Barber was a sixth round draft pick of the Washington Capitals in the 2012 Draft.

TORONTO (AP) –  Jake Muzzin had a goal and two assists, Frederik Andersen made 24 saves and the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-0. Toronto bounced back nicely after dropping three of four, including a 5-2 loss at Pittsburgh on Tuesday.  It was Andersen’s second shutout of the season and No. 18 for his career. Matt Murray made 26 stops for Pittsburgh, which suffered its most lopsided loss of the season.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – The University of Pittsburgh football and men’s basketball programs have been placed on probation for three years by the NCAA.  The organization says both programs committed a series of violations between 2015 and 2018. The violations centered around both programs exceeding the number of allotted practices during that time.  Former men’s basketball coach Kevin Stallings was given a three-year show-cause order, meaning he must sit out 30% of his new team’s games if he is hired during the three-year window of the show-cause order. Stallings is currently out of coaching. Former director of basketball operations Dan Cage also faces a three-year show-cause order.