Area high school fall sport athletes begin preseason workouts
John Fortugna looked from the sidelines of beautiful Bill Power Stadium and liked what he saw. Uniontown’s first day of football practice was well attended and running like clockwork.
“We’re pretty organized,” said Fortugna, who is entering his ninth year as head coach of the Red Raiders. “We work on preparation months ahead of time, on scheduling, getting practice times worked out.”
Monday marked the official opening of high school practice for fall sports, and it couldn’t have come any sooner for Fortugna, whose team is raring to go after three consecutive postseason appearances.
“They were biting at the bit after working out all summer,” Fortugna said. “They wanted to put on the pads.”
Once again Uniontown has over 60 players on its roster.
“It’s been gradually climbing over the past several years,” Fortugna said. “The first day has gone well. We’ve gotten a lot accomplished in the morning and this afternoon.”
Across town at Laurel Highlands, coach Scott Knee was happy to see things running in much more organized fashion as he heads into his second year at the helm.
“I’m much more at ease on the first day this year,” said Knee, who guided the Mustangs into the playoffs last year. “Everything’s running so much smoother. We have a lot of seniors and upperclassmen back and they pretty much know the drill. I don’t get as upset as I did last year because I know they understand what we want. It’s a much nicer feeling.
“The kids know what to expect from the coaching staff and the coaches know what to expect from the kids.”
Uniontown will be running three-a-days all week, while LH will do the same from until Thursday, when it will switch to morning and night practices.
“I think the kids are usually more amped for the evening practice,” Knee said.
Over in Brownsville, Connellsville and Carmichaels a trio of coaches – Andy Assad, Andy Robertson and Mike Bosnic, respectively – are in the same situation Knee was in last year at Laurel Highlands. All of their predecessors were highly successful.
Assad was making his practice debut as the Falcons’ new head coach, stepping in for the retired Don Bartolomucci.
“Not bad,” Assad in assessing how his team’s initial practice was going. “We’ve been conditioning the last couple weeks heading into this. They’re picking up on some new stuff now.”
The first day of practice is nothing new to Assad. He’s been through 18 of them as a high school assistant coach, spending five years at Waynesburg Central, two at Brownsville and seven at Bethel Park before coming back to the Falcons in 1999.
“I’ve been doing this quite a while,” Assad said. “It’s good to get on the field. You can condition all you want, but getting into playing shape is totally different. It’s a lot different once you put on the pads and start running around.”
The practice field was damp and slick, but spirits were high during Andy Robertson’s first practice as the Connellsville head football coach. Nearly 70 players scattered the practice stations as Robertson began his tenure for the Falcons, replacing longtime coach Dan Spanish.
“This is awesome,” Robertson said during a water break. “I had butterflies standing up on the hill before we came down to the practice field. I feel like we’re playing Trinity today.”
Robertson was excited to see what type of football players he has after conditioning all summer long.
“We were finding all summer who could lift. Now, we’ll find out how many football players we have, and by Wednesday we’ll start to find out what quality football players we have,” Robertson said.
Bosnic was pleased with his first day on the field as the Mikes’ top man.
“It went pretty good,” said Bosnic, who is taking over for John Menhart. “I was excited about it. I didn’t sleep much last night, but I settled down after I got here.”
Bosnic’s job was made easier by an experienced Carmichaels coaching staff.
“It’s a big help having Tim (Jones) and Gene (Franks),” Bosnic said. “They’ve been there. And my dad (Mike Bosnic) is helping me out, too. There’s a lot of experience there.
“All in all, everything went pretty smooth.”
Football wasn’t the only sport that opened practice on Monday. Soccer, golf, cross country, girls volleyball and girls tennis also got under way.
Connellsville cross country coach Joe Siecinski said the opening practice of the season was just a continuation of the work most of his squad put in through the summer.
“It’s just another day of what we’ve been doing all summer. I think when school starts, that’s when the kids see the season coming,” Siecinski said.
Siecinski had his squad, seven boys and seven girls, run a three-mile warm-up before running “a bunch of hills.” The veteran Falcon coach altered his schedule to allow many of his runners to compete in Wednesday’s Phil Foley Memorial 5K on the Yough River Trail.
Connellsville girls tennis coach Don Campbell was hitting lobs to his squad in one of the many drills he had planned for the opening practice.
“I want to get the girls feeling comfortable. Every person is at a different level,” the veteran coach said. “I want to find out where they are.
“I have 19 girls out, but I have a lot of younger kids this year. We’re learning some basic rules with a little conditioning. It’s a feeling out process.”