VALLEY SPORTS HISTORY

2014

• A contingent of local high school senior football players will get to play one more game. Fifteen players from six local schools will take part in the 18th annual BeeGraphix Football Classic at McGuffey High School. Monessen coach Andy Pacak will coach the South Team while Chartiers-Houston coach Terry Fetsko was selected to lead the North squad. The two coaches are well known to one another as they play in the Black Hills Conference. Pacak said, “There is some familiarity there. Terry knows what kind of system I run and I am familiar with the kind of stuff he ran. It is just a matter of getting the players acclimated to those systems.”

• Mark Tinges Sr. and Jr. are fierce competitors on the track. Every Friday night the father and son, race in the Super Compact Division in their Blue and Orange Dodge Neons at Motordrome Speedway. The father drives in car No. 49 car and his son in car No. 47. The family racers make it hard for mother Melinda Tinges and sister/daughter Marissa Tinges to know who to root for, so they put their full support behind both drivers. Tinges Jr. said, “Tough competition teaches you that you have to study and know your competitors. My goal is to win the point championship. That gets tougher every time you win a feature as you have to add 25 pounds of weight to your car.”

2004

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Marcus McCullough will be coaching high school football this year, but not at Ringgold or Monessen. Mc-Cullough – who has served as an assistant coach for the Greyhounds for the last three years – was out of a job when his boss Coach Joe Fischer was let go following the 2003 season. McCullough is a 1988 Ringgold graduate where he starred for the Rams in his senior year. This year, he will be an assistant on Coach Tom Nola’s Clairton staff. McCullough is no stranger to the Bears as he was an assistant there for six years under Fischer before he followed him to Monessen. He said, “I am going to miss Monessen because I’ve grown really close to the players.”

• With only six games remaining in the spring season, Straub’s Mon Valley United finds itself in a must-win situation if they are to keep their playoff hopes alive in the Pennsylvania Adult Soccer League’s Over-30 Division. The Straub booters see an opportunity when they face the Pittsburgh Dynamo Football Club at home at Gallatin-Sunnyside Park. Manager Greg Pastor said, “This is a great opportunity for us. We’re playing at home and hopefully we’ll be at full strength or at least something that resembles it to show that we’re not out of this thing yet.”

1994

• Sunday — no paper