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Wednesday, September 26, 2001

By Paul Zeise

Cross country can be a lonely sport, but Baldwin's Dan Mazzocco has found a jogging partner to provide him all the support he needs.

"Last year, I struggled at the end of the season because I burnt myself out mentally and didn't handle the pressure well," he said. "I went to a Christian summer camp and I discovered that I had been running for the wrong reasons. Now, I run for an audience of one, and that's God. I don't have to please anyone else, and I'm not competing against anyone else.

"So I've done a lot more praying this season, and I thank God for the gift of being able to run fast, and it has made all the difference in the world. I don't feel that pressure on me and I'm able to run a lot smarter races. "

Mazzocco had an excellent start last year and finished second at the WPIAL meet, but he failed to place at PIAA meet. In the spring, he had a stress fracture in his shin and failed to defend his WPIAL and PIAA Class AAA 1,600-meter titles.

This season, he has run strong in every race.He won the California Invitational several weeks ago and won the Slippery Rock Invitational this past weekend in his season-best 16:14. At both invitationals, he beat Mt. Lebanon's Shawn Cavanaugh, the two-time defending WPIAL champion. Mazzocco finished second last year. This weekend, he will compete at an invitational at St. Francis and has his eye on the national qualifier in New York in October.

"Last year, I didn't run well at the national qualifier," he said. "So, I'm really focused on it this year, but I'm more relaxed."

Kara Vezza is the fourth and final sister from her family to play soccer at Quaker Valley. Maybe there is something to saving the best for last.

Vezza, a center midfielder, is considered one of the best sophomores in the WPIAL. She has scored 13 goals in nine games for Quaker Valley and is one of the primary reasons the Quakers are 8-1 overall and 7-0 in WPIAL Class AA Section 5.

The other Vezza sisters who played at Quaker Valley are Roey, Angel and Tessie. Roey is a senior on the Geneva College soccer team and Tessie a sophomore at West Virginia.

Could Kara be the best of the bunch?

"We'll see about that," she said, laughing. "My goal is to be better than Tessie. She scored a lot and she was a playmaker. That's what I want to be. I even have the same number [12] jersey as her."

Tessie scored 64 career goals. She was named to the Post-Gazette All-Area team as a senior. Kara has 24 career goals, with 2 1/2 seasons still to go.

Kara believes her family has played a great role in her success.

"I was the youngest, and we have videos of me when I was in diapers, and they would put me in goal and take shots at me," Vezza said.

Vezza's father, Dom, used to be Quaker Valley's girls' coach.

"Soccer has always been the main sport in my family," Kara said. "Ever since I was 4, I've been going to soccer tournaments. I could not wait until I could play and all my sisters could come and watch me."

He's on the same team, wearing the same uniform and playing the same position. But Austin Sykes looks like a totally different player than he did in the first two games of the season. He has rushed for more than 200 yards in back-to-back games. In the first two games, he gained 27 yards on 21 carries.

Sykes, a 6-foot-1, 215-pound junior halfback, set a school record a few weeks ago when he rushed for 252 yards on 29 carries in a 41-26 victory against New Castle. On Friday, he gained 224 yards on 20 carries in a 35-0 victory against Ambridge.

"Our offensive line has really changed the past two games. That has a lot to do with it," said Moon Coach Mark Capuano. "Our line is healthy now. They're doing a much better job of knowing their assignments and getting off the ball. Then if you give a guy like Austin some room to run, he can make things happen."

Moon is 2-2, and Sykes has gained more than 500 yards rushing.

"I've never seen a guy here at Moon have two games like that," Capuano said. "He's a punishing runner, and I'll tell you what he does real well. He makes people miss, and he changes directions."

Capuano believes Sykes can be a Division I football recruit after his senior season. But Sykes also is a talented baseball player. As a sophomore, he was the starting center fielder on a Moon team that won the PIAA Class AAA championship.

"I think football is going to be his sport because of his size," Capuano said. "He can certainly play at the college level. If it doesn't work out in football, he can always go back and play baseball."