Track and Field 2025
She's not a household name in Venango County track circles, but Isabella Peterson made her presence felt Saturday in the District 10 track meet, capturing the girls 3A discus.
Now Peterson was seeded second in the disk -- but with a modest throw of just around 100 feet -- yet still emerged as one of three champions for Franklin, the others being household names Logan Knight and Isabel Griffin.
Region king Oil City had no champions, but showed off its depth and qualified a four athletes in five events for states in 2A.
Beatrice Kolesar and the girls 3200 relay won titles for Cranberry in the District 9 meet Friday. Click on the links for more.
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(Photo by Christy Fackler)
Around the horn 2025
Kelly Malek/Berries celebrate 2-0 decision over Redbank
Bring on those playoffs
The 13-game winning streak over -- done, compliments of St. Marys -- Cranberry is still in the midst of another successful softball season as it heads into post-season next week.
The Berries are 14-4, KSAC champions and the top seed for the District 9 2A playoffs as they seek their third straight title and their sixth overall.
The lineup includes sophomore Ashlynn McWilliams who is hitting .510, five .400 hitters (these stats are posted on MaxPreps) and four more players who are batting .300 or better.
The .400 hitters: Avery Coe .479, Keelie Schneider .462, Cassie Scarbrough .451, Lexi Reisinger .440 and pitcher Gracee Hess .413.
The .300 hitters: Danica Wenner .397, Haylie Gregory .383, Kennedy Stewart .375 in limited action, Jadyn Shumaker .358 and Emma Morrow .300. Team batting average its .420.
Seven players are above 1.000 in OPS, McWilliams, a sophomore leading, with 1.527. She's also one of four players with 20 or more RBI.
Hess has been solid in the circle (4.14, 15/52) with help mostly from Wenner (2.74, 2/33). Hess has been named KSAC MVP. And on Tuesday, the Berries beat Titusville, 11-2, in a pre-playoffs practice game. Titusville is top-seeded in District 10 3A.
Cranberry lost its first two games of the spring to DuBois and St. Marys, were 1-1 during a trip south in early April and didn't lose again until May 16 when a three-run homer erased a two-run lead in the fifth. St. Marys is the top seed in the D-9 3A tournament.
Grove season over
Cambridge Springs ended Rocky Grove's softball season with a 2-0 decision in the District 10 1A playoffs Wednesday.
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The Orioles finished with an 8-12 record. The Spa moves into the title game with a 14-2 mark.
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The Grove had just three seniors on this year's team, including Elizabeth Mawhinney who who tossed a five-inning no-hitter May 12 against Forest Area.
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Mawhinney struck out 11. Only a third-inning error kept Mawhinney from a perfect game, but the Orioles won 14-0.​
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(Christy Fackler photos)
Some big sticks here
The Franklin and Oil City softball teams might have walked softly this season, but they did carry some big sticks as can be seen in the charts below.
Franklin was 5-13 and hit .263. But the ERA was 8.30.
Oil City was 1-17, defeating only Eisenhower, before ending the season on a 16-game losing streak. The Lady Oilers hit. 241, but pitched to a 9.76 ERA and averaged 4.6 errors per game.
Franklin photos by Christy Fackler; Oil City photo by Kelly Malek
(Photo by Kelly Malek)
(Photos by Christy Fackler)
D-10 baseball playoffs
Class 1A
Semifinals
Thursday's Games
#1West Middlesex vs. #4 ROCKY GROVE, 2 p.m., Slippery Rock
#2 Youngsville vs. #3 Cochranton, 2 p.m., Mercyhurst
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Championship Monday, May 26.
Winner advances to interdistricts and will play the fourth place team out of the WPIAL on June 2.
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Class 3A
Tuesday's Results
#1Titusville vs. bye
#4 Girard 7, #5 FRANKLIN 1
#2 Sharon 4, #7 North East 3
#3 Fairview 6, #6 Corry 1
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Semifinals
Friday at Slippery Rock
Titusville vs. Girard, 1 p.m.
Sharon vs. Fairview, 3:30 p.m.
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Championship Monday May 26.
Winner advances to interdistricts and will play the third seed out of the WPIAL on June 2.
D-10 softball playoffs
Class 1A
Today's Games
#1 West Middlesex vs. #4 Youngsville, 6 p.m., Slippery Rock
#2 Cambridge Springs 2, #3 ROCKY GROVE 0
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Championship Monday, May 26. Winner advances to interdistricts and will play the third seed out of the WPIAL on June 2.
Batting and pitching stats for local baseball players.
D-9 softball playoffs
Class 2A
Tuesday's Results
#5 Brookville 2, #4 Central Clarion 1
#3 Redbank Valley 8, #6 Moniteau 3
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Semifinals
Thursday, Heindl Field, DuBois
#1 CRANBERRY vs. Brookville, 4 p.m.
#2 Brockway vs. Redbank Valley, 2 p.m.
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Championship May 26 at Heindl Field, DuBois
Top two teams advance to interdistricts. Champion will play District 6 runnerup , runnerup will play either District 5 or 8 champion on June 2.
Blurbs
Franklin's Jay Prettyman signed a letter-of-intent to continue his running/academic career at Memphis (the basketball school). Prettyman's older brother, Caleb, is a freshman at Penn State where he is listed on the cross country roster. The Prettymans have given Franklin a powerful 1-2 punch in the distance races for the past five years. Jay added to his resume by running a meet record 9:42.06 at the Redbank Valley Invitational on May 8. (Photo here by Christy Fackler).
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Oil City's Jackson Dilks (photo here by Kelly Malek) reached the D-10 semifinals where he lost to eventual three-time champion Gavin Ferretti of Cathedral Prep. Jaxon Klapec and Carter O'Dell beat a team from Titusville May 8 to advance to the quarterfinals of the D-10 doubles tournament before losing.
Saw in the paper where erstwhile star wrestler Dane Wenner of Cranberry is class valedictorian and headed to Penn State where he plans to major in electrical engineering. In addition to his many accomplishments in wrestling and track (school record 13-7 pole vault last year), Wenner is a four-time state qualifier in cross country and golf. Didn't realize that. The salutatorian is none other than Kayla Hanna, one of the stars of the state championship cross country team. She's plans to attend Slippery Rock where she will be in the accelerated physician assistant program -- with a minor in Spanish.​
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Will McMahon has signed a letter to attend Penn State-Behrend. Last fall it was announced that he was going there for golf, now it's baseball......Nikki Petro, a jumper on the Oil City girls track team, is headed to Mercyhurst, according to a "tweet"" on X. The university launched its Division I track program (for both men and women) in November.​
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Roman McFall, former Oil City High School football/basketball prospect whose family moved away after his freshman year, received the outstanding male athlete award at Canyon High, a 6A school in New Braunfels, Texas. He also received the coveted Spirit of Canyon award, which is given at the end of the night.
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The Cranberry Super Berry logo finished in the top eight in the country and the top four in its region in a recent contest. The Berry eventually lost out to the Hampton, Va., Crabbers. And to think about 40 years ago the school was thinking about changing its nickname from the Berries -- to the Cougars or something if memory serves.
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Ben Webber, an Oil City High School graduate who has been at ESPN since 2000, won another sports Emmy Tuesday, this time for his work on College Game Day (Rece Davis, Lee Corso and those guys). Webber is a coordinating producer at ESPN. He's a Westminster College graduate who starred in swimming in high school and before that was a fixture in the Oil City Little League, if not on the field in the press box. Webber was the subject of this excellent feature story by John Dudley in the Erie Times News in 2017.
Football 2025
Three months to go...
(Photos by Richard Sayer)