Call them the Stellar Six. Due to COVID -19 outbreak on team, Upper St. Clair will play today’s state quarterfinal with six players. Coach for today will be Tanner Gensler usually a volunteer assistant. Former USC player and sophomore in college. Brother of player Luke Gensler.

David Pantelis now has 21 points after going scoreless in first. His 3-pointer with 5:34 left in game has given Upper St. Clair a 47-37 lead. If USC pulls this off, is this one of the stories of the year in WPIAL sports?

1:42 left Upper St. Clair has ball and 53-44 lead.

And there it is. Upper St. Clair down to 5 players after late injury but they beat Erie 62-57 in 6A quarterfinals. Onto semifinals for first time in school history. David Pantelis 22 Luke Gensler 19.

I wrote this piece in 2011. Now, 10 years later and five-plus years removed from the PIrates most recent playoff season, it seems applicable again. post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/…

Cubs had 11 hits today vs Pirates. That's more than half the total they had in their first 6 games combined (21). The 21 hits were the fewest in the first 6 games of a season by any Cubs team over the past 120 years.

An element of this story centers on lack of balls in play. Got me curious for then & now perspective. 1960: Bill Mazeroski won 2B Gold Glove. Had 872 chances in field. 2019: Kolten Wong won 2B GG. Had 671 chances. Difference: 201 chances. Big change. post-gazette.com/sports/pirates…

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On this day in 2018, Nick Kingham, making his major league debut, retired the first 20 Cardinals batters he faced before allowing a single to Paul DeJong with two outs in the 7th. No pitcher had made it through six perfect innings in his debut since 1974

This says so much about the 2021 MLB season so far: 11 of the 18 batters in the starting lineups for the Tigers and Yankees today finished the game hitting .198 or below.

With a .231 batting average, Bucs offense would seem to be anemic. At least until you realize that there are 10 teams in the majors with a lower batting average. Proof that everything is, indeed, relative.

The only players in MLB with multiple home runs at PNC Park this season: Jacob Stallings, Javy Baez, Joc Pederson and Brandon Crawford. The Pirates have 9 homers in 20 games (plus a few innings) at PNC this year. The Cubs have 7 homers in 4+ games at PNC this year.

🏈 The party’s finally starting in Canton! Check out our Hall of Fame coverage: ‣Pittsburgh's honorees: newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/pro-football-h… ‣Gene Collier’s essay: bit.ly/GeneCollierHal… ‣#Steelers stories from our insiders: post-gazette.com/sports/steelers Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | APSE

Anyone else happen to notice yesterday's lineup? If ever there was a testament to where club is at the moment, it was this. In the lineup were uniform numbers 69, 64 & 68 -- numbers rare among regular big leaguers.

Tunch Ilkin: One of the great human beings, not just football player. post-gazette.com/sports/steeler… via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pittsburgh Pirates baseball card you think of from your youth. I’ll start…

Union workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have been working under a contract that expired March 31, 2017. That's 5 years without a contract. Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh 🗞 workers deserbve a new, fair contract.

The Reds are the second team in National League history to lose at least 21 of their first 24 games. The other was the Washington Senators in 1894.

First class stuff from Kenny Pickett in the Post-Gazette today.

The Rangers deadline additions have been huge in this series. In this game alone, Copp has a goal and now Vatrano has three points (one goal, two assists) after that goal. They've really solidified the top six.