VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH • SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 2022 • 15
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biggest smile on his face. The whole
time he was at the golf outing, you could
see how excited he was. He was telling
everyone about it. That was very special
to me.”
Dave Lovelace said pride swelled up
inside him for his son throughout the
recruiting journey.
“Just seeing him grow up from a boy to
a successful young man, it’s an incredible
feeling,” he said. “We are blessed
to be able to watch Braylan grow at Pitt
just as we watched Mikayla do the same
thing at IUP. He bought into what his
talents could get him academically and
athletically. He believed in himself on all
things. We can’t wait for this upcoming
season.”
Dave Lovelace said college recruiting
today is a night-and-day difference from
when he went through the process in the
early ’90s.
“Back when I was going through it,
we didn’t know who was in the stands
watching us,” he said. “There were cords
on phones back then with rotary dials.
If you weren’t home, you didn’t know
you got a call. There were no cellphones
to find you every second of every day.
I didn’t have an answering machine
either. But schools came into the high
school, and that’s how you found out.
“All of the schools were talking to
Braylan, when they were allowed to,
through all of the social media channels.
It has changed so much, and the technology
of recruiting will keep advancing,
I’m sure.”
Braylan said his big sister also was
pretty excited to see him make his decision
and join her in the collegiate ranks.
Mikayla, who now is in graduate
school for pharmacy, played three seasons
at IUP and was a part of multiple
Crimson Hawks championship teams.
Her time at IUP came on the heels of
a stellar four-year career at Leechburg
that saw the Blue Devils girls basketball
team rise to prominence.
The 2018 Leechburg grad put herself in
the record books as the all-time leading
scorer, boys or girls, in Blue Devils history
with 2,047 points. She helped Leechburg
reach the WPIAL playoffs three
times and earn the first WPIAL playoff
win in program history.
“I admit that I did look up to her when
I was younger,” Braylan said. “She was
one of the big Leechburg athletes at the
time and was one of the ones from her
group to go on and play college basketball.
She also pushes me a lot to do what I
need to do. She was very excited and also
very emotional when I made my decision
to Pitt because I am ‘growing up,’ as she
would say.”
The name on the front
Braylan Lovelace entered 2021 as a
known commodity in several WPIAL
football circles after a sophomore season
that saw him carry the ball 109 times for
993 yards in seven games. He added 27
receptions for 334 yards.
The Blue Devils went 3-4 in Eastern
Conference play during the
covid-affected 2020 season and just
missed qualifying for the WPIAL Class A
playoffs.
But Leechburg had a season to remember
in 2021 with its first winning record
since 1991 (9-3), its first playoff trip since
1988 and its first playoff victory since 1978.
The Blue Devils became the first team
in Alle-Kiski Valley history to score 500
points in a season.
“““We’’’ve been working hard all offseason,
since January, to be ready for
this season,” Lovelace said. “We kind
of developed a target on our backs, and
we expected that. We don’t just want
repeat what we did last year; we hope to
exceed it. It will be a big challenge, but
we accept it.
“For the seniors, it’s our last ride. I’ve
been playing with some
of these guys since I was 6
years old, so we’re going
to put it all out there.
We’re going to try and
win a championship. We
know what we have to do
to get there.”
Lovelace was a big part
of the team’s success,
rushing 171 times for
1,506 yards and 28 touchdowns.
He rushed for more
than 150 yards six times and eclipsed the
200-yard mark with four scores against
both Jefferson-Morgan and Jeannette. He
scored a career-best seven rushing touchdowns
against Imani Christian.
The specter of covid lingered throughout
the season with a number of games
throughout the WPIAL canceled, but
Leechburg escaped that fate.
Lovelace said Blue Devils players took
proper precautions to make sure they
stayed on the field and continue to do
that now to be safe and healthy.
An eye on the future
With his college decision behind him,
Lovelace said it is full speed ahead for
his final high school year on the field and
in the classroom.
“There should never be a day when I am
resting,” he said. “I know what I still have
to do to prepare myself for the next level.
It’s so much different than in high school.
There is some pressure on my shoulders,
but I accept that as I keep moving. ”
Leechburg coach Randy Walters said
he is ready to see what Lovelace can do
to follow up his junior year.
“Braylan has a positive influence
on the team because of his great personality,”
Walters said. “He’s got all
the ability. But he knows when to chill
people out and have fun. He’s one great
example of how strong the entire team
is academically. I was looking at some
numbers at our banquet last year, and I
think the team GPA was 3.28. He holds
his teammates accountable, and in turn,
they hold each other accountable.
“I told a number of coaches all throughout
the recruiting process that Braylan is
a better kid than he is a player. That all
comes from mom and dad and the family
and how they stress education, work ethic
in both academics and sports and just
being a good person in school and in the
community. In my coaching career, I’ve
worked with many terrific kids, including
ones on this team, but I’ve never had
a more well-rounded kid as a Division I
athlete plus everything else.”
While games in the Eastern Conference
loom large for Leechburg, one game on
the schedule has extra-special meaning
for Lovelace.
And he and his Blue
Devils teammates don’t
have to wait long to
scratch the itch.
Leechburg will face
neighboring foe Apollo
Ridge in a Week Zero
contest Friday at Owens
Field.
The teams last played
in Week Zero in 2019 with
the Vikings recording a
28-12 road victory.
The Vikings lead the all-time series by
the slimmest of margins, 22-21, with the
first meeting in 1969.
“It’s great to see a number of rivalries
come back this year with the Backyard
Brawl and us playing Apollo,” Lovelace
said. “It is a cool coincidence. Rivalries
are what football is all about, no matter
what level. Apollo and Leechburg has
been it for years. My dad went through
the same thing with Apollo when he
played. It is super intense. It’s all about
getting those bragging rights.”
Lovelace feels that the Alle-Kiski Valley
as a whole has a chance to do some
good things this year and put several
teams in the playoffs.
“I grew up with a lot of the kids on
these teams, like Ben Lane at Freeport,”
he said. “I played AAU basketball with a
lot of them from fourth through seventh
grades. We definitely follow each other’s
progress. After a Friday night game, I’ll
send a text or get a text asking, ‘How did
you do in your game?’ If we have a Saturday
game, we might go out to another
game close by on a Friday, like Kiski. We
played with those kids on Kiski Valley
(youth team). To see the potential for a lot
of the area teams to do well is exciting.”
as
field
Lovelace file
Senior RB/LB
6-2/198
Committed to: Pitt
Division I offers: Pitt,
Army, Brown, Bucknell,
Columbia, Delaware,
Penn and Virginia Tech
2021 statistics:
171 carries, 1,506 rushing
yards, 30 TDs
Michael Love is a Tribune-Review staff writer.You can contact Michael by email at mlove@triblive.com
or via Twitter @MLove_Trib.
“For the seniors, it’s our
last ride. I’ve been playing
with some of these guys
since I was 6 years old, so
we’re going to put it all out
there. We’re going to try
and win a championship.”
BRAYLAN LOVELACE