Hempfield High School, known as the Spartans, has become the first team in the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League to equip its players with GPS tracking vests from PlayerData.
Data‑Driven Football
The lightweight vests, each costing roughly two hundred dollars, capture a full suite of metrics including distance covered, speed, sprint count, acceleration and overall workload during practices and games. Hempfield invested in twenty‑five units for its starters and second‑team players.
Coach Tim Evans, who first saw the technology at a Pitt baseball camp, says the data gives the staff a clear picture of each athlete’s exertion, allowing for smarter workload management and greater accountability on the field. Quarterback Carden Lippmann notes that the vest is almost unnoticeable during training.
During a recent offensive drill, slotback DeRon Hunter posted a top speed of twenty‑one point three miles per hour, a figure the system uses to compare against game repetitions and assess stamina. The numbers help Evans fine‑tune conditioning plans and keep players honest about their effort.
The training camp officially begins on Monday, with full‑contact practices following a week of heat acclimatization. The schedule calls for five days of drills before a Saturday scrimmage, and Week 1 games are slated for August 28, with some teams also running a second scrimmage.
Beyond the football field, the article briefly outlines the upcoming WPIAL golf postseason, naming host venues such as Hannastown Golf Club for the Class 3A boys’ first round and Sewickley Heights Golf Club for the final round, along with Hill Crest Country Club and Valley Brook Country Club for the girls’ events.
The piece also celebrates Dane Daugherty, who captured the inaugural Randy Giannini Memorial Scholarship, honoring a local sports historian and former Belle Vernon basketball star.