St. Pius Weekly Sports Recap

fans had more to celebrate last week as all of the sports in action rolled to victories, including the top-ranked volleyball squad running its win streak to 19 matches. 

Softball won the only region game that a Golden Lion squad played last week while both cross country teams continued their strong performances. The male harriers are ranked No. 5 in the ga.milesplit.com All-Classification poll and continue to sit atop the AAA poll while the ladies moved up a spot to No. 2 in the AAA poll. Football remains at No. 4 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution rankings, and move up to No. 3 in the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association poll.

The Golden Lion football team defeated North Hall 38-13 in the 2011 home opener on Friday evening to improve to 3-0 on the year. Senior quarterback Trey White rushed for 245 yards and two touchdowns while sophomore running back Jake Delany ran for 117 yards and a score. Nick Ruffin and Logan Rosborough added one TD each. 

Senior Joseph Crochet was in on 20 tackles, including 12 solo tackles while Geno Smith and Jacob Hambrick added 14 and 13 hits, respectively. The Golden Lions begin Region 5-AAA play at home Friday night at 7:30pm versus North Springs.

The volleyball squad rattled off five more victories to up its record to 27-2. After dispatching of Centennial with a 3-0 win earlier in the week, the Golden Lions took four more wins on Saturday at home. St. Pius defeated Notre Dame (Tennessee) and Kennesaw Mountain before knocking off No. 5 Columbus (AAA) and No. 9 Lassiter (AAAAA).  The lady netters return to Area 5 action on Tuesday taking on North Springs and Druid Hills at Druid Hills High School before participating in the Lovett Block Party Invitational Friday and Saturday.

Both boys’ and girls’ cross country teams competed in the Carrollton Orthopedic Invitational last Saturday. The boys’ squad was the top finishing AAA school and finished second overall in all classifications.  The male harriers were paced by a second-place finish by Austin Sprague and fourth-place showing by Calvin Tirrell. Andrew Anastasiades and Paul McNeil finished 19th  and 24th, respectively. The ladies finished as the top AAA finisher as well and eighth overall as Devon Dabney came in fifth-place and Tessa Schwarze completed her race in 12th position. The boys’ team will run this weekend at the Warpath Invitational in Canton while the girls travel to Cherokee High School.

The softball squad finished the week winning six straight games to improve to 10-6 and 2-0 in the region. St. Pius finished second in the Buford Invitational coming back to win five straight games after dropping the first game of the tourney. The Golden Lion club was led offensively by Liz Schneider who went 12-18 with four runs batted in and eight runs scored and Dylan Krause who went 9-21 driving in one run while scoring five. Juniors Natasha Sherrod and Natalie Corso combined to hit 15-28 with 11 RBI. Senior Rebecca Ponce de Leon, who missed the first four weeks of the season with a bicep strain, returned to the pitching circle and posted a 3-0 record in the tournament. St. Pius will travel to North Springs Tuesday and Lovett Wednesday before concluding the week at the SCORE invitational in Chattanooga.

The competition cheer squad will spring into action Saturday with their first meet of the season at Mill Creek High School.