District 10’s Small Schools Quietly Build a National Sports Pipeline

The Erie Times-News named its Northwest Pennsylvania high school sports award winners this month, splitting the district’s Varsity Cup between Cathedral Prep and Fairview. Cathedral Prep claimed it for the big schools, Fairview for the small ones, according to Erie Times-News writers Tom Reisenweber and Mike Copper. Further down the list: a Meadville volleyball player on the U.S. national team, and a Corry hurdler who broke a state record that had stood for 33 years.

Small, rural conferences rarely stack this much national-caliber talent into one graduating class. District 10 just did, across four sports at once.

Cathedral Prep and Fairview Share the Varsity Cup Again

The Varsity Cup is a traveling trophy, handed out each year to the district’s strongest overall athletic program in two size classes. Both winners get to display it until next year’s ceremony.

• District 10 – the PIAA region covering Erie, Crawford and Mercer county schools, among others, in Pennsylvania’s northwestern corner, where teams qualify through district brackets before the state’s PIAA tournaments.

The rest of the major awards spread credit around several towns. Meadville’s boys volleyball team and Maplewood’s girls volleyball team were named teams of the year, and in a coincidence the release never explained, the two winning coaches share a surname: Nick Bancroft at Meadville and Sheila Bancroft at Maplewood. Tymir Phillips of Meadville and Makayla Presser-Palmer of Northwestern were named athletes of the year, and Northwestern’s Charli Rea took rookie of the year.

Three honors went to individuals outside the team categories. Taylor Kretz of McDowell won the James Conner Courage Award, named for the Erie-born NFL running back. Floyd “Skip” Chatt received the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Denny Lynch won the Golden Whistle, the award for officiating. Coaches built every one of these programs long before a trophy arrived. Staff at Anchorage high schools have described why prep sports matter to students in nearly identical terms, a long way from Erie County.

Both teams of the year play volleyball, and one of their stars spent parts of the spring wearing an entirely different jersey.

Meadville’s Middle Blocker Answers to Team USA

Luc Soerensen stands 6-foot-8 and hits from the outside for Meadville, but USA Volleyball uses him as a middle blocker on its junior national teams. He made the U.S. Boys U19 roster in both 2024 and 2025, won gold at the NORCECA U19 Continental Championship in Puerto Rico, and started at the 2025 U19 World Championship, where he put up a match-high six blocks and five kills for 11 points in a round-of-16 five-set loss to Bulgaria.

He is headed to Penn State next. His high school résumé already includes two PIAA championships in three trips to the title match, one of them a 2024 win over Manheim Central, 3-1, at Penn State’s Rec Hall for the Class 2A crown, the program’s second title since 2019. He balanced both jerseys across three varsity seasons.

His sport is having a moment nationally, too. The number of boys playing high school volleyball in the United States climbed from 66,487 to 95,972 over three seasons, a jump of more than 44%, and 25 state associations now sponsor boys state tournaments, per the National Federation of State High School Associations. Maplewood’s Maggie Means rode the same sport to her own piece of history: a career-record 2,501 assists on top of 294 kills and 854 digs across four seasons.

A Record Older Than the Hurdler Who Broke It

Blake Cook won the Class 2A 110-meter hurdles at the PIAA championships, then came back later that same day and beat a record that predated his own birth. His time of 37.25 seconds in the 300 hurdles topped a mark of 37.47 that had stood for 33 years, trimming the old standard by .22 seconds.

National rankings had Cook among the country’s top 10 hurdlers entering his senior season, according to Erie Times-News reporting, and he will run at Mercyhurst this fall. He is not the only District 10 name to leave a state track meet with new hardware. West Middlesex’s AnnaSophia Viccari entered the PIAA meet as the 10th seed in the 800 and left as champion, closing her career with three state medals.

History Gets Made, and Nearly Made, in the Same Season

Three finishes this year turned on decades of history, not just personal bests.

Cross Country’s First in 24 Years

Mercer senior Maggie Jewell won the PIAA Class 1A girls cross country title at Hershey’s Parkview Course in 19 minutes, 28 seconds, the fastest time among 216 finishers. She became District 10’s first female PIAA individual cross country gold medalist since Eisenhower’s Heather Wilmoth won the Class 2A race in 2002, in what was Jewell’s final start for Mercer.

Wrestling’s Long Wait Ends

Grove City sophomore Chase Karenbauer won the 114-pound title at the PIAA Class 2A tournament, a 9-8 decision over Bishop McDevitt’s Braiden Lotier at Hershey’s Giant Center. It made him northwestern Pennsylvania’s first PIAA wrestling champion since 2021 and capped a 46-0 season. Karenbauer’s lone career loss came as a freshman, when he took bronze at 107 pounds; he now stands 94-1 at the halfway point of his high school career.

One Match From the First Ever

Northwestern junior Cydney Rea arrived at the Giant Center as the Western Region’s top seed at 170 pounds and pinned or shut out her way to the final. Bryce Snyder of District 11’s Palisades caught her in overtime for the title, leaving Rea one win short of becoming Erie County’s first PIAA girls wrestling champion. She finished the season 30-4, with one more year left to chase it in a sport still writing its own record book.

The District’s All-Time Scorer Heads to Arizona

Makayla Presser-Palmer finished her Northwestern career with 2,560 points, the most in District 10 history for either gender. She averaged 28.7 points a game as a senior, led the district with 76 three-pointers, and scored 33 points in the D-10 championship game against Seneca before adding 22 against Quaker Valley and 32 in a PIAA loss to Greensburg Central Catholic. She signed with the University of Arizona.

The boys’ scoring record still belongs to someone else, but Erie First Christian’s Avery Collins made his own run at it. Collins averaged 33.4 points a game, finished with 2,427 career points, and was named the state’s Class 1A player of the year after leading the Eagles to a district title and a PIAA quarterfinal appearance. He will play at Edinboro.

Where the Class of 2026 Plays Next

Volleyball, track and basketball were not the only sports sending District 10 athletes to college rosters this year. Here is where several more of the district’s honorees signed:

• Maddy Vogan, Sharon softball: Penn State, on pace for 1,000 career strikeouts after a 24-1 season with a 0.41 ERA
• Zack Kruszewski, Mercyhurst Prep baseball: Pitt-Bradford, the only player in program history with 100 career runs and 100 steals
• Juelz Johnson, Farrell football: Slippery Rock, after a career that included 5,302 rushing yards and 70 touchdowns
• Luke Lewis, Hickory football: Bucknell, a three-time all-state offensive and defensive lineman
• Jackson Chiocco and Jenna Popowski, Fairview and Fort LeBoeuf soccer: both to Mercyhurst, with 195 combined career goals between them
• Jack Raimy, Cathedral Prep swimming: Colgate, after a PIAA gold medal in the 100-yard butterfly
• Gavin Ferretti, Cathedral Prep tennis: John Carroll, a two-time PIAA doubles champion
• Kate Sowers, West Middlesex golf: James Madison, after a runner-up finish at the PIAA tournament
• Anthony LaBoda, Fairview golf: won a one-hole playoff for the D-10 title, then posted a tournament-record second round of 65 at states

Vogan’s strikeout pace fits a broader shift in prep softball, where dominant circle aces increasingly talk about life beyond the sport. Sherando’s Lily Wray, another prep pitcher with a full plate, is weighing a future career in occupational therapy once her playing days end.

The rest of the class rounds out just as deep. Farrell’s Rhashaud Dunbar piled up 104 tackles and 14 sacks on defense, McDowell’s Abigail Pulcinello starred on both sides of girls flag football, and McDowell’s Alyvia Stockton reached 100 career lacrosse goals. Cathedral Prep added a lacrosse title run from Rory Callaghan and repeat district champions in swimmer Jaslene Cage and tennis player Paige Patsy, while Mercyhurst Prep’s Kam Skelton repeated as the district’s boys cross country gold medalist.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many students play high school sports in the United States now?

A record 8,266,244 students played high school sports nationally in the 2024-25 school year, up 203,942 from the year before, with growth in girls’ programs driving much of the increase, according to a record participation count from the National Federation of State High School Associations. Boys and girls both set individual participation records that year.

When did Pennsylvania sanction girls wrestling as an official sport?

PIAA member schools voted to sanction girls wrestling in May 2023, the association took over jurisdiction that July 1, and the first PIAA girls individual state tournament followed in March 2024. Cydney Rea’s runner-up finish this year came in only the sport’s third official state tournament.

Can a high schooler play on a USA Volleyball junior national team and their school team in the same season?

Yes. Players like Luc Soerensen miss a handful of high school matches each spring for national team training camps or tournaments, then return to their prep rosters for the rest of the season. Soerensen did it in back-to-back years while still leading Meadville to two PIAA finals.