Keystone Games to test area’s best | 1983

By Doug Hadden
Special to the Inquirer

The top athletes in 25 different sports from Southeastern Pennsylvania will converge on Pennsylvania State University in State College this week for the second annual Keystone Games.
Based loosely on the recent National Sports Festival in Colorado Springs, Colo., the Keystone Games organization has divided Pennsylvania into four regions as the basis for this week’s competition, to be held Thursday through next Sunday. Region I includes athletes from Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks and Philadelphia Counties.”
Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris, chairman of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness since 1976, is the games’ honorary chairman. Harris will oversee competition in track and field, archery, baseball, wrestling, basketball, weightlifting, boxing, water polo, canoeing, volleyball, cycling, swimming, fencing, softball, field hockey, soccer, gymnastics, rugby, ice hockey, judo and rowing.
More than 2,400 athletes are expected to participate in the games, which were organized to promote sports activity in Pennsylvania and to provide an opportunity for residents to develop their skills through competition.
Among the local athletes representing Region I is a contingent of 15 wrestlers and coach Al Juliano from Bucks County’s Mohawk Wrestling Club. Former Pennsylvania Inter-scholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) state champions Glenn Koser and Bill Marino, and national prep school champion Jim Miller top the list of wrestlers competing on Friday and Saturday.
Archbishop Wood High School’s Eileen Richart will coach the Region I girls’ soccer team, which includes three players from Council Rock High in Newtown. Missy Ottinger, Kim Messina and Lisa Boccuti will be on the team competing Saturday and Sunday.
Defending girls’ javelin champion, Julia Solo of Upper Dublin High School, will try to repeat that feat and possibly win two other events when she competes in the shotput, discus and javelin on Friday. Germantown Academy’s Michael Richter, The Inquirer’s all-Area goalie, will defend the Region I nets in ice hockey competition.