A-K Valley high school notebook: Freeport slugger commits to Mercyhurst

By: HSSN Staff
Monday, September 24, 2018 | 11:06 PM

Ally DeJidas visited Mercyhurst a handful of times during her college softball recruitment, and when she cracked a home run off the scoreboard at Plum’s softball field in Freeport’s WPIAL quarterfinal game against Waynesburg, Lakers coach Leanne Baker was in attendance.

Apparently both sides liked what they saw.

DeJidas, a Freeport senior and the reigning Valley News Dispatch Softball Player of the Year, verbally committed Sunday to Mercyhurst, announcing her decision on her Twitter account.

“I know that Mercyhurst is a great school for me athletically and academically,” DeJidas said. “I had a decent-sized list of schools, and it came down to the coach, it came down to the school, the campus itself, and just all those factors. Mercyhurst beat all the schools and all of the categories.”

Baker attended many of DeJidas’ travel ball games over the summer, allowing the two to build a strong relationship, and the Freeport star’s campus visits solidified her decision.

DeJidas led Freeport in several offensive categories last season to help the Yellowjackets reach the WPIAL Class 3A semifinals. The centerfielder hit .622 with four doubles, four triples, seven home runs and 26 RBIs. For her career she has a .620 average, 19 doubles, five triples, 15 homers and 64 RBIs in 45 games.

Leadership summit

Former Pittsburgh Penguins player Kevin Stevens will be the featured speaker at a leadership summit for WPIAL athletes, coaches, athletic directors and principals that will include a panel presentation about the dangers of addiction.

The event, scheduled for 10 a.m.-noon Wednesday at the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh, was put together by the FBI’s Heroin Outreach Prevention and Education (HOPE) initiative and Familylinks.

According to recent studies, student-athletes are at a higher risk than non-athlete peers to experience a lifetime use of opioid prescriptions. Overdose deaths from opioid prescriptions have skyrocketed over the past two decades.

Each school invited can bring up to eight athletes, preferably four female and four male, along with the high school principal, athletic director and athletic trainer. WQED will film the event and potentially will air it statewide for PBS’ “Battling Opioids Week: A Project of PA Public Media.”

Stevens, a Penguins winger from 1987-95 and 2001-02 who also played for the Boston Bruins, Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers, was prescribed painkillers after a 1993 injury. He battled addiction for more than two decades and was arrested in 2015, charged with conspiring to sell oxycodone, an opioid painkiller He pleaded guilty in December 2016 and was sentenced in May 2017 to three years of probation and a $10,000 fine and was hired last September as a special assignment scout for the Penguins.

Sciu in

Former Deer Lakes football coach Steve Sciullo will receive an honor for his playing days next month, as the former Shaler star will get inducted into the school’s athletic hall of fame.

A two-year starter at Shaler, Sciullo played at Marshall and in the NFL for the Indianapolis Colts, Philadelphia Eagles and Carolina Panthers. He coached Deer Lakes from 2014-17, leading the Lancers to the second WPIAL playoff berth in school history in 2015. He resigned this spring after he was hired to a full-time staff position at Hampton, where he’s also an assistant football coach.

Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Doug at dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter @dgulasy_Trib.

Tags: Freeport