PITTSBURGH — FOOTBALL

Mauti will miss Wisconsin game

STATE COLLEGE – Penn State star linebacker Michael Mauti will miss Saturday’s season finale against Wisconsin with a left knee injury.

Coach Bill O’Brien made the announcement Monday. The team’s worst fears came true after Mauti was carted off the field during the 45-22 win last week over Indiana.

Mauti’s college career came to an early end. The senior leader and emotional anchor for the Nittany Lions was instrumental in helping to keep most of the team together after the NCAA levied landmark sanctions in the offseason for the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

Mauti and fellow senior Michael Zordich made impassioned pleas to stick with the program two days after the penalties were announced. In the end, 10 players transferred, but more than 90 percent of the roster stayed.



Red Flash trio earns honors

LORETTO – The St. Francis University football team picked up a trio of honors from the College Football Performance Awards on Monday.

Jakob DeMedal, John Kelly and Josh Thiel all earned national honorable mention honors at their respective positions.

DeMedal, named national nonorable mention defensive back of the week, forced a pair of fumbles, picked up eight total tackles, two for loss, and registered a pass breakup in Saturday’s win against Sacred Heart in the regular season finale.

Kelly rushed for a career-high 187 yards in his final game with the Red Flash and posted four touchdowns.

He went 6 for 12 for 58 yards and three touchdowns.

Thiel moved into first all-time at SFU in field goal makes, extra-points made and scoring with three field goals and five extra points against the Pioneers. 



NFL

Steelers’ seat dispute in court

PITTSBURGH – The Pittsburgh Steelers and the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority are trying to convince a judge who should pay to add 3,000 seats to 11-year-old Heinz Field.

The Steelers contend their lease requires the authority to pay about two-thirds of the $38 million the team expects it will cost to add the end zone seats and a new video scoreboard.

But the authority’s attorney says that provision kicks in only if half of the NFL’s stadiums have had similar expansions and at least 25 percent of the cost of those other expansions were funded with tax dollars. Authority attorney Walter DeForest says that hasn’t happened.

The stadium now has 65,050 seats.

The Steelers sued when a deal to finance the authority’s share with parking and ticket surcharges fell through.

The Allegheny County judge has not ruled.



SOCCER

UPJ’s Stoup

on first team

Pitt-Johnstown sophomore forward Janna Stoup was named First-Team Daktronics All-Atlantic Region after voting by the region’s sports information directors.

Stoup, who led the WVIAC in goals, points per game, goals per game, total points, and game-winning goals, also ranked second among all players on the All-Region team in total goals with 15, and led the region in game-winners with six.

Nationally, Stoup is sixth in game-winning goals (six), 12th in goals per game (.882), 15th in points per game (1.88), 18th total goals (15) and 29th total points (32).

Gannon University’s Mani Bruckener was named Regional Player of the Year.

Twenty-six women’s soccer student-athletes from 13 different institutions were named to the Daktronics Division II All-Region Team in the Atlantic Region.

 

BASKETBALL

UPJ teams to host WVIAC foe

The Pitt-Johnstown men’s and women’s basketball teams will play host to Bluefield State College for a WVIAC doubleheader tonight in the Sports Center.

Coach Sasha Palmer’s Lady Cats will make their home debut at

5:30 p.m., followed by coach Bob Rukavina’s Mountain Cats at

7:30 p.m.

The Lady Cats look to bounce back from a 60-57 season-opening loss Saturday at Concord University.

The UPJ men slipped to 2-1 overall and 0-1 in the WVIAC on Saturday’s 86-76 loss at Concord. Nick Novak had a game-high 27 points, six rebounds, and five assists to lead four Pitt-Johnstown players.



Red Flash on the road in Ohio

LORETTO – The St. Francis University women visit nationally ranked Ohio State at 7 p.m. tonight in Columbus, Ohio.

 St. Francis is 3-0. Ohio State is 2-1. Ohio State won the only prevous game against the Red Flash, 93-59, in 2010.

St. Francis enters the game trying to match the best start in program history. The Red Flash opened the season by knocking off preseason MEAC favorite Howard,  then beat Bucknell on the road before holding on for a win Sunday against Akron.

The Flash have started 3-0 for just the third time in history, and St. Francis has started 4-0 just once.

The Red Flash average

68.3-points a game and allow only 62.7.

St. Francis has out-rebounded its opponents 129-120 en route to three consecutive victories to open the season.

 SFU has not been outrebounded in any single game yet this season either, against Howard both teams tied at 33 rebounds apiece. The biggest rebounding difference was when the Flash beat Bucknell and outrebounded them 51-46.

Alli Williams leads SFU with 14.7 rebounds per game and Shene Fleming is second on the team, averaging 6.3 per contest.