On his desk, a well worn 8.5 x 11 inch yellow legal pad has scratched on its first few pages the dates and times for football, soccer, volleyball, cross country and golf. “That’s my fall schedule,” said Scott Salvo before picking up the pad to clarify his statement. He flips passed the full pages to a blank one and says, “actually that is my fall schedule.” Salvo is retiring after over 30 years in high school athletics and teaching wood shop and computer aided drafting. Over the last eight years he has served as the Titusville Rocket’s athletic director. Facility improvements during his tenure highlight his accomplishments. He oversaw the revamping of historic Carter Field, converting the old grass, and sometimes muddy, field to a much more versatile turf giving the school and the whole community a vital community asset that is used much more than a few Friday nights a year. Salvo had served as the Rocket’s head football coach for eight years as well as coaching track. When he took over as AD for Jim Come he stopped coaching. “I just thought that my focus needed to be on 17 sports as opposed to just one, because there is always something going on." The Union High School alum said the AD position has been both challenging and rewarding. Helping kids make the right decisions has been a priority and admits it is hard when he has to deal with situations where kids didn’t make the right ones. “I’ve made a lot of friends…but unfortunately with some of the decisions I’ve had to make, I’ve lost a few friends too,” he said quoting famed college and pro coach Nick Saban, “If you’re into leadership, don’t try to make everybody happy,” adding his own words at the end… “if you want to make everybody happy, go sell ice cream.” He said the decisions of an athletic director are sometimes difficult and not everyone agrees with, but they are made with the good of the Titusville Rockets in mind. “It comes with the territory,” he said. “One thing with being an athletic director is you never know what you’re going to be doing next. People say ‘oh that jobs a piece of cake, all you do is go to games and watch them,’ but there is a little bit more behind the scenes.” Salvo says he’s loved the job, but also acknowledges the difficulty of the often 11-12 hour days that are required. . "I’m looking forward to being home more." Salvo isn’t getting out the rocking chair or binge watching any of the television shows he’s missed over the last 32 years, he has accepted a job in sales dealing with sport equipment for DeMans Team Sports out of Brookville. He will be working with area schools and will also still be helping out with playoffs with the PIAA and District 10. “It keeps me involved with athletics.” Taking over for Salvo will be long-time boys basketball coach and General McLane alum Craig Mehlenbacher. He’ll have the summer to acclimate and get ready for the fall, in fact he has been already working afternoons with Salvo since February when he was chosen as the replacement. “I have some big shoes to fill,” Mehlenbacher said. He was middle school athletic director in Florida and found out he liked that aspect of school athletics. The health and Phys. Ed. teacher for the last 12 years at Titusville says he plans to continue coaching boys basketball for now, but knows his duties as AD will be a priority. He has been spending his afternoons since February working closely with Salvo to get ready to take over in June. “It’s going to be a challenge, but I think we have a good support system here” Mehlenbacher said. “Scott has done a tremendous job… a lot of it is probably going to stay the same at least at first.” He hopes to be in the job for a number of years and make the job his own as well, but credits Salvo’s work setting up a good situation for him to take over. He’ll be stepping away from his teaching job to concentrate on the position. “Luckily, being a coach here I know all the coaches. I think that would be the hardest thing to step into a school where you didn’t know everybody. I think that will be a benefit for me. It’s going to be exciting, it’s going to be rejuvenating for me… I think it’s a perfect time for me to switch gears a little bit and get into something new and exciting,” he said. “I’m ready for it and I’m excited to take it on. It’s an honor for me.” A 10-0 and 0-10 teams are great memories for SalvoSalvo looks back at his 32 years in high school athletics.
Being a football coach, he said was different than his last eight years as athletic director. "With football it was 365 days a year of football and nothing but football. As AD he has learned a lot about all the sports that make up a school's athletic community. “I don’t think I ever went to a wrestling match before, or swim meets, they were things that I was never exposed to before… this has exposed me to all different aspects of athletics,” he said. “Not only just the sports themselves, but the different coaching styles (that they bring to the needs) for the particular sport. There isn’t a mold everybody comes out of to become a coach.” He credits both ends of the spectrum with his favorite memories as a coach. “From a coaching stand point (my highlight has to be) our 2006-7 football season. We went undefeated in the regular season. That group of kids… I was just thinking about that team this morning and I can name every starter on that team.” That team was special for what it accomplished with W’s, but Salvo is quick to name his second favorite memory as a tem that didn’t win a single game. “That was a group of kids that just worked so hard for me. I was crazy that they could just get the crap beat out of them on Friday night and the next Monday they were there asking ‘what do we need to do?’ And they knew damn well they were going to get the (butt) kicked again the next Friday, but it didn’t matter. That was a pretty special group of kids too, from a coaching aspect.” He leaves feeling like things are looking up for the Brown and Gold. “From an athletic stand point I think we’re in a really good place right now. With where we’re at with coaches and the support we get from administration and these athletes that we’ve got here… we’re in a good place.” Salvo looks at the job as making it easier for the student athlete to succeed. “From an athletic director standpoint just seeing a team take the field and knowing you had a part in that… you maybe didn’t teach them any X’s and O’s but you helped them in some way to get to where they are at. That’s pretty cool. Most days have been better than others,” he said. From press release
The Oil Region Alliance celebrates May as National Historic Preservation Month by honoring projects and people preserving the character and history of our area annually with the Historic Preservation Awards. The public is invited to enjoy this free event, which includes refreshments and the awards ceremony where entities will be recognized for their recent great work in preserving Oil Region history. The Winners are:
RSVPs are appreciated. Please contact Jessica at jgorman@oilregion.org or 814.677.3152. At the end of last year when the Titusville Rocket girls soccer team got a playoff nod for the first time in a very long-time, coach "Wheels" said it was in large part due to a group of athletes who worked hard during the off-season to build up their game.
This hard work is also paying off in other ways as the winter league team made the playoffs and will now compete for the championship this Saturday at 6 p.m. at the Pennbriar facility of the Erie Premier Sports Complex not far from the Route 97 and I-90 interchange. See www.facebook.com/titusvillenewsjournal tomorrow for a story about their big win over nemesis North East to reach the finals. It will also be in this week's paper. Olivia Clinton lights up the Colestock Theater stage with her portrayal of the title character in this year's Titusville Middle School's production of Mary Poppins Jr. set to open at 7 p.m. March 14. Shows are also slated for Friday, March 14 at 7 p.m., Saturday, March 18 at 2 p.m. and another show at 7 p.m.
Below are some more photos from the regional tournament.
Titusville took 10 wrestlers into the district tournament last week. The goal for the wrestlers was two-fold - win a D10 title and if not, qualify for regionals. Of the 10 wrestlers seven will move on to wrestle tis weekend at the regional tournament in Sharon with a chance to qualify for the state tournament in Hershey the following week.
The top eight place finishers made it out of District 10, but only the top four will advance out of regions that also consists of wrestlers from other districts. Rocket senior Kaleb Brunst led the Titusville contingent with a fourth-place finish in the 189 bracket .Brunst was 4-2 on the weekend and came into the tournament as the third seed out of Section 1. He recorded a pin and three decisions and a loss by decision before falling to Colton Tupper of Reynolds in the third-place match. He moves to 35-11 on his final season. The Rockets also had three fifth-place finishers - freshman Parker Miller at 127, and seniors Nate Stearns at 133 and Landen Wolfkiel at 152. Miller had a busy tournament, going 4-2. He finished the weekend with a 5-1 decision over Ebin Everett of Sharon. Stearns, who came into the tournament as the second seed out of Section 1, was 3-2 on the weekend. He recorded an 8-5 decision over Josh Perrino of Greenville in the fifth-place match. Wolfkiel, Titusville's only number one seed entering the tournament, won his final match against Cole Kellogg of Eisenhower by forfeit. He was 2-2 on the weekend. Sawyer Wolfkiel came in with a seventh place finish at 114 pounds and both Gavin Donaldson (160) and Kameron Mong (172) earned eighth-place finishes to advance. The road to Hershey won’t be easy for any of the wrestlers. Several other Crawford County wrestlers advanced including two Maplewood grapplers. 127 -pounder Chase Blake got his 100 and 101 career wins en route to a second-place finish Saturday. Junior Cadyn Shetler also advanced at 114 pounds with an eighth-place spot on the podium. Franklin also advanced two wrestlers with Cael Dailey finishing in second at 121 and Sophomore Gary Kiselka took home a sixth-place medal at 215.
Titusville senior Nate Stearns got a second period pin and Trenton Rodgers held on to a 7-4 decision to end the night. "All in all they wrestled good. I was very happy the way they performed," Stearns said. Titusville will move on to take on Fort LeBoeuf at 11 a.m. Saturday at Sharon High School. "Fort LeBoeuf is obviously tough, they took second in the state last year. So we'll have our hands full," Stearns admitted. "Anything can happen, you wrestle hard, you go out there and get a couple pins and who knows? Our conditioning is where it needs to be right now, I'm happy with our conditioning."
Titusville swimmers are experiencing another strong season, especially on the girls side of the pool. Today they head to Slippery Rock for THE match of the season. "What I can tell you about this one? Setting up the line up is going to be a giant chess match," said girls head coach Seth Come. His undefeated girls have, on paper, their toughest team matchup of the year. It is a meet that could likely determine the region title. "They have some strong swimmers. Mollie Massella is one of their top competitors and I wouldn’t be surprised if she ended as the Region 1 Girls Swimmer of the year. She can swim anything very well and that is where the chess game comes into play," Come said as he tries to work out a strategy to maximize overall point totals. "When planning a line up, I have to predict what events I think their girls will be swimming and tailor our line up to best combat. For example, in the past they have had strong butterfliers. One strategy we can take is try to stick one of our girls in that race to split the points up or we could let them have the points in that event and we could stack another event to try and even the score that direction." Last year Slippery Rock had the advantage, but this is a new year. "I’m hoping we can compete better against them than we did last year. They did lose a couple studs, so I hope that is a concern for them," he said. "I’d love to get that region title this year and the girls are definitely hungry for it." The boys are also in action hoping to improve on their 2-2 record. They have lost to Oil City and Grove City by small margins. Scroll down for more photos from last week's meet. To view even more visit: sayerrich.zenfolio.com/p838287519 Titusville swimming photos: sayerrich.zenfolio.com/p838287519
A couple weeks back Titusville boys basketball coach Craig Mehlenbacher admitted the team was on a bit of a roller coaster ride. One game they would be firing on all cylinders and the next, struggling to put the ball in the basket. Against Eisenhower they knew it would be a battle having already losing to them 81-52 earlier in the season. "We knew it was going to be tough," Mehlenbacher said. Going into the game they needed to play well, but a bit of sloppy passing and dribbling early on set the tone. Eisenhower controlled the paint with very few second chances coming the Rocket's way and they seemed to have solid fundamentals, ball control and scoring many points early on with give and go layups. Despite the lopsided loss, Mehlenbacher chose to focus on the positives. "We kept battling, when some teams would just quit, they kept going," The coach said at halftime he wanted his kids to come out and play hard. "We did some really good things, especially in the second half as far as kicking the ball up the floor," he added. "We had really good ball movement, we got some really good shots and getting to the hoop. We had some steals and layups out of it too." In the end they lost 71-59 which was a step up from their previous performance against the Knights.. Mehlenbacher said his team played hard and as a coach that is really all he can ask for.
Titusville was led by Colon with 26 points, seven of which came in the last few minutes of the game. Hudson Fratus had a solid game shooting knocking down 18 points. David Leonard had nine and Devon Kurschinske and Cameron Kerr combined for six Eisenhower who are now 8-1 overall had solid outing from Kyler Black and Kris Bunk who combined for 37 of Ike's points. Austin Hanson added 11, Derek Guiher nine, Maysen Wonderling dropped seven. Four other Eisenhower players scored in the win. Email us at 8and322@gmail.com to purchase a support ad for your business or get some of our gear to help us keep documenting the community. Buy shirts here.
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April 2024
CategoriesAuthorEight & 27 focuses on stories centered around Titusville, PA. With the sad end of The Titusville Herald, we're hoping to pick up the slack. |