No WPIAL baseball player hit more regular-season home runs than Belle Vernon’s Dom Francia. None had more RBIs, either.
Francia, a senior catcher, finished the regular season as the WPIAL home run leader with seven. No other player had more than five. Francia also had 32 RBIs, which tied him for the lead with two others.
California University of Pennsylvania freshman Haley Bashada was named the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference West Softball Pitcher of the Week.
Bashada, a Belle Vernon graduate, pitched the first complete-game shutout of her career, beating Edinboro 18-0 in a game in which she had five strikeouts and allowed just three game. In the next game versus West Chester, Bashada registered another complete game, giving up eight hits to the regionally-ranked Rams.
Pitt junior wrestler P.J. Tasser, a Belle Vernon graduate, captured the 174-pound title at the Edinboro Open.
Tasser took home his first title of the season when he knocked off Andrew Church of Penn State by a 7-2 decision in the finals. On his way to the finals, Tasser earned decisions over Mike Vollant of Kent State and Nick Mitchell of Edinboro and a 12-3 major decision over Alex Gong of Gannon.
Last week: In victories against West Mifflin and Thomas Jefferson, Slagus scored 15 and 19 points, respectively, the latter of which was a team-high. Those victories helped push Belle Vernon's winning streak to six games.
Check this out: Slagus, a senior, has made sure that her final season of high school basketball will be a memorable one. She recently eclipsed career totals of 1,000 points and 750 rebounds and she entered the week averaging nearly 20 points a game (19.9), putting her among the top 15 scorers in the WPIAL. TheLeopards were second in the Class AAA Section 4 standings before Thursday.
• Did the 1,000-point and 750-rebound accomplishments mean much to you or is that something people tend to over-hype? That was definitely a remarkable moment and it was a memory from my high school career that I'll always take with me because I had my teammates, family and friends there supporting me.
On a night she helped her team inch closer to a WPIAL playoff berth, Belle Vernon’s Jessica Slagus earned a milestone personal accomplishment.
Slagus scored her 1,000th career point in Belle Vernon’s 64-17 home win against Waynesburg last Thursday. Slagus, a senior forward, scored 26 points in the game to give her 1,006 for her career.
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