New coach DeVito eager to build up Norwin girls soccer team

By: Bill Beckner Jr.
Thursday, August 8, 2024 | 8:06 PM

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While she grasps for similarities between the girls soccer programs at Penn Hills and Norwin, Ashley DeVito continually finds herself recognizing the differences.

“This is a community where kids grow up together, and there is a lot of excitement with playing together (in high school) … The game is big here,” DeVito said of Norwin, where she begins her first season as coach of the Lady Knights.

She coached Penn Hills, her alma mater, for seven years. She is quickly taking to her new surroundings.

“A lot of times (at Penn Hills) we had girls playing soccer for the first time,” said DeVito, 31, who played college soccer at Edinboro. “I have a passion for the sport and have been around it all my life. I see that with the girls here. I see myself in a lot of them.”

In that connection lies the essence of DeVito’s mission to make Norwin a playoff team again.

Hired in March, she replaced Diane Metzger, who resigned after three seasons. Norwin went 4-14 last season and finished last in Section 2-4A. The Lady Knights were shut out nine times.

Caught in the toils of a two-year playoff drought — the Lady Knights never missed the WPIAL playoffs before that — Norwin is primed to resurface behind its new leader.

DeVito had 45 girls signed up for conditioning as of early this week, and she had to make cuts to pare down varsity and junior varsity rosters.

“We have great kids who have been here week-in and week-out (in the summer),” she said. “I want to produce the most competitive team possible. There are some hard decisions. I know we have talent here, and I love the opportunity to access that talent and try to make the most of it.”

Senior midfielder Julia Bursick did not play high school soccer last fall but is back out for the team again.

“It wasn’t the right environment for me here (last year),” said Bursick, a Duquesne recruit. “So far (this year) it has been really positive. Things are more realistic, and we’re more prepared.”

DeVito, who also coaches sixth and seventh graders — including a half-dozen Norwin girls — in the Beadling Soccer Club, had familiarity with Norwin before she applied for the coaching job.

“When Norwin won the WPIAL title (in 2016), we were the No. 16 seed (at Penn Hills) and played them in the first round,” DeVito said. “There was a huge crowd here (at Norwin). It was like a Penn Hills football game.”

Also, Caitlin Schuchert was DeVito’s coach at Penn Hills. Schuchert is the wife of Norwin boys soccer coach Scott Schuchert and one of his assistants.

Schuchert is a science teacher at Plum, where DeVito recently was hired as an assistant principal.

She said Norwin and Plum have agreed to work around her schedule. Practices, for example, will be an hour or so after school so she can make the trip from Plum to North Huntingdon.

“I just ask the girls to give me all you’ve got all the time,” DeVito said. “If they do that, we can compete at the highest level.”

The new coach’s staff includes Nate Wolfe, another former Penn Hills player, and Kelly Antonucci, who was DeVito’s teammate in high school.

DeVito is an advocate for sound, defensive soccer.

“I love to defend,” she said. “I want us to build out of the back. If we score 99 goals, it doesn’t matter if we give up 100. I will take a 1-0 win any day.”

Bill Beckner Jr. is a TribLive reporter covering local sports in Westmoreland County. He can be reached at bbeckner@triblive.com.

Tags: Norwin