Beaver Valley’s All-Time Top 10 High School Track Athletes

The Beaver County Times published its top 10 historical ranking of Beaver Valley high school track and field athletes on June 29, 2026, closing out a season-long USA Today Local Sports 250 retrospective on the area’s prep sports. The list runs from a 1969 discus county record set by Bill Dvorzak at Freedom Area to senior seasons from the 2010s, mixing sprints, distance, hurdles, and field events from a region that has produced Olympic medals, NCAA titles, and NFL roster conversions.

Read the boys’ and girls’ lists together and a different picture emerges: a small cluster of programs keeps producing champions, the same events keep cycling through the same schools, and one athlete stands well above the rest by any measure the prep game uses.

How the List Came Together

The series closes alongside Independence Day, with the Times working back through the decade-by-decade history of its core high school sports rather than picking an all-star roster from the just-finished 2026 season. Track and field was the final installment.

Ethan Morrison, the sports reporter who wrote both top-10 lists, applied the same framing to every sport in the series. The point was to honor the prep-stage accomplishments, not the pro careers that came after. For some of the names below, the prep stage is a footnote to what came next. For most, it is the peak record.

No points formula or committee vote was published. Each list ranks ten athletes, with the athlete’s school, primary event, and the gold count at the WPIAL district championships and PIAA state championships. High school careers only were counted toward the rankings, even where the post-prep resumes run deep. Two athletes, both from Rochester, occupy the top spot on their respective lists.

The Boys Who Built Beaver Valley Track History

James Law, the top-ranked boy, was so far ahead of his Class 2A peers in the spring of 1985 that the local paper ran a feature under the headline “Law of the land: No one out-runs James.” Over his junior and senior seasons at Rochester, Law won six WPIAL individual golds in the 100, 200, and 400, plus a state relay gold in the 4×100 as a junior, then repeated as WPIAL champion in all three individual events as a senior. He set the WPIAL 100-meter record at 10.5 seconds in 1985, the WPIAL 400 at 48.5 seconds in 1986, and the PIAA 200 at 22.0 seconds in 1985, per James Law’s Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame page. He left for Odessa Junior College, ran on a 4×100 relay still in the national junior college record book, and later started at defensive back for the semi-pro Pittsburgh Colts.

Distance and throws produced the next two names. The list then moves into a stack of WPIAL and PIAA sprint champions spaced across decades, two Aliquippa gold-medal moments a generation apart, and a discus thrower whose county mark still stands from the late 1960s. Here are the boys ranked first through tenth:

1. James Law, Rochester (1985-86): WPIAL titles: six (100, 200, 400 across two seasons). PIAA titles: three (100 and 200 in 1985, 400 in 1986). WPIAL records at 100 (1985) and 400 (1986). PIAA record at 200 (1985).
2. LJ Westwood, Quaker Valley (2012 graduate): WPIAL golds: five. PIAA golds: four. School record in the 800. Part of the 4×800 relay team that won three straight WPIAL titles and back-to-back state titles.
3. Dom Perretta, Beaver Falls (2016 graduate): PIAA golds: three in the 800 and one in the 1,600. School records in all three distance events. Second in the 800 at New Balance Indoor Nationals and fourth at the USATF Junior Olympics as a sophomore.
4. Derek Moye, Rochester (2005-07): Three WPIAL golds at 400 (2005-07). Two PIAA golds at 200 and 400 (2007 state meet). Better known as a football recruit.
5. MJ Devonshire, Aliquippa (2019): Three WPIAL titles in 100, 200, and 4×100 relay his senior year. Two PIAA titles in 100 and 200 in 2019.
6. Tommie Campbell, Aliquippa (2005 graduate): WPIAL record-setter in 100 and 200, plus 4×100 relay gold his senior year. PIAA gold in the 100, the first individual state championship in Aliquippa track history. Silver in 200 at PIAA.
7. Bill Dvorzak, Freedom Area (1969): County record in discus at 178 feet his senior season. WPIAL gold. Silver at the state meet.
8. Brian Churovia, Center (1989-91): Three straight WPIAL golds in discus.
9. Phil Oxendine, Quaker Valley (1992-94): Three straight WPIAL golds in 100-meter dash.
10. Dwight Collins, Beaver Falls (1980): School records at 100 and 200. PIAA gold in 200 in 1980.

The Girls Who Defined Beaver Valley Track

Lauryn Williams tops the girls’ side with a margin as wide as Law’s did on the boys’ side. A 2001 Rochester graduate, Williams finished her prep career with seven WPIAL gold medals and seven PIAA gold medals, won the 100 and 200 at the state meet as a sophomore, then repeated as a senior and set records that the WPIAL’s own Hall of Fame profile says still stand in Pennsylvania. Her post-Rochester resume would fill another column: nine-time All-American at Miami, NCAA champion at 100 in 2004, and the first American woman to medal in both Olympics according to Lauryn Williams’ WPIAL Hall of Fame profile.

Williams won Olympic silver at the 2004 Athens Games in the 100-meter dash, Olympic gold at the 2012 London Games as part of the 4×100 relay, and Olympic silver at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics as part of the two-woman bobsled. She is one of five athletes worldwide to medal in both a Summer and a Winter Olympics.

The other nine athletes on the girls’ list cluster around distance, hurdles, and field events, with two more sprinters anchoring the lower part of the order. Here are the girls ranked first through tenth:

1. Lauryn Williams, Rochester (2001 graduate): WPIAL golds: seven. PIAA golds: seven. State records in 100 (11.78 seconds) and 200 (23.85 seconds) as a senior. NCAA champion in 100 (2004). Olympic silver in 100 (2004). Olympic gold in 4×100 (2012). Olympic silver in two-woman bobsled (2014).
2. Mia Cochran, Moon Area: Swept all three distance events at WPIALs and at the state meet as a senior, scoring 30 individual points and delivering Moon Area the team state title on her own. COVID-19 cut short one prior season.
3. Allyn Laughlin, Center: Gatorade Player of the Year (senior season). County record in shot put at 50 feet 10 inches. Three WPIAL golds in shot put.
4. Candy Young, Beaver Falls (1979): PIAA gold every year she competed, including hurdles as a freshman. Fifth at the AAU Indoor Nationals Tournament. Broke the world amateur record in the 60-meter hurdles in 1979. Named the nation’s most outstanding athlete that year.
5. Christa Rogers, Quaker Valley: Three WPIAL golds in the 100-meter dash. Won four golds her junior and senior seasons across 100, 200, 100 hurdles, and 4×100 relay at districts.
6. Nora Johns, Quaker Valley: Three WPIAL golds and two PIAA golds. School record in the 300-meter hurdles. Lost her 2020 season to COVID-19.
7. India McCoy, Ambridge: Four WPIAL golds in high jump. Three PIAA appearances. Best state finish was silver as a sophomore in 2011.
8. Becky Novacek, Hopewell (2007): Two WPIAL golds in high jump as a junior and senior. PIAA gold in high jump in 2007. Three-sport athlete who also started in basketball and volleyball.
9. Ellen Cogswell, Quaker Valley (1993-96): Three WPIAL golds in the 1,600 and 3,200.
10. Lauren Costa, West Allegheny: WPIAL gold in the 100 as a freshman. Senior year pair of golds in 100 and 200.

The Programs Behind the Champions

Read the boys’ and girls’ lists together and one school jumps out. Quaker Valley placed five athletes on the combined top 20, more than any other school: Westwood and Oxendine on the boys’ side, Rogers, Johns, and Cogswell on the girls’ side, across four decades and three event groups. The school has long been known for its distance runners, but the appearance of a sprinter (Oxendine) and a hurdler (Johns) shows the program’s reach beyond its signature event.

Other programs show their own patterns. Rochester produced both top-ranked athletes, the only school to land a number-one finisher on either side. Aliquippa placed two sprinters (Campbell and Devonshire) spaced fourteen years apart. Beaver Falls landed three athletes across distance (Perretta), sprints (Collins), and hurdles (Young). Center, Freedom Area, Moon Area, Ambridge, Hopewell, and West Allegheny each put a single athlete on the list, almost always from one event group.

How the Disciplines Stack Up

Sprints dominate the boys’ list and distance and hurdles carry the girls’, with field events barely registering on either ranking.

Six of the ten boys are pure sprinters: Law, Moye, Devonshire, Campbell, Oxendine, and Collins. Two boys are distance runners (Westwood and Perretta), and two are throwers (Dvorzak and Churovia). On the girls’ side, Williams leads four athletes with a sprint or hurdles pedigree (Williams, Rogers, Costa, and Young), Cochran and Cogswell cover the distance lanes, and three field-event specialists (Laughlin in shot put, McCoy in high jump, Novacek in high jump) close out the bottom of the rankings.

Hurdles appear only on the girls’ side (Young, Rogers, and Johns). Pole vault and the horizontal jumps do not appear on either top 10 at all.

COVID-19 leaves its mark on the lists too. Cochran lost a prep season to the pandemic; Johns lost her 2020 campaign entirely.

• Boys list sprinters: 6 (Law, Moye, Devonshire, Campbell, Oxendine, Collins)
• Boys list distance runners: 2 (Westwood, Perretta)
• Boys list throwers: 2 (Dvorzak, Churovia)
• Girls list sprinters or hurdles-capable: 4 (Williams, Rogers, Costa, Young)
• Girls list distance runners: 2 (Cochran, Cogswell)
• Girls list field-event specialists: 3 (Laughlin, McCoy, Novacek)

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the top-ranked Beaver Valley high school track athlete?

James Law, the 1985-86 Rochester sprinter, sits atop the boys’ list, and Lauryn Williams, the 2001 Rochester graduate, tops the girls’ list.

Which school had the most athletes on the top 10 lists?

Quaker Valley placed five athletes on the combined top 20 lists across four decades and three event groups, more than any other school on either ranking.

Who is the only Beaver Valley athlete to medal at both a Summer and Winter Olympics?

Lauryn Williams, with Olympic silver in the 100 (2004), Olympic gold in the 4×100 relay (2012), and Olympic silver in two-woman bobsled (2014), as recorded on Williams’ Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame entry. She is one of five athletes worldwide to medal in both Games.

What was the criteria for inclusion on the list?

Only achievements from each athlete’s high school career counted, with WPIAL district and PIAA state medals the primary measure. College and professional resumes were excluded from the rankings themselves.

When was the list published?

The list appeared on June 29, 2026, as the final installment in a season-long series that has rotated through Beaver Valley’s signature high school sports all summer.