Diamondbacks pitcher among Plum hall of fame honorees

The Plum High School Sports Hall of Fame will enshrine its Class of 2024 on Thursday, November 14th at the Edgewood Country Club.

This year’s honorees include Scott Benzel of the Class of 1993, Nolan Cressler of 2012, Andrew DeFazio of 1995, Richard Foutz of 1970, Scott McGough of 2008, Bill Rometo of 1970, William Wilmore of 1990, Ronit Yurovsky of 2012 and the 1968 and 1969 W

A reception will be at 5:7 for dinner from 30. Tickets are $50 per person. A table for eight is $400. Donations in checks should be made payable to Plum High School Sports Hall of Fame and mailed to P.O Box 114006, Pittsburgh, PA,15239.

For inquiries or to book a ticket, please send an email to phsshof@gmail.com.

In the next one week the Advance Leader will feature the first four of these inductees.

Scott McGough

Their son Scott McGough had a successful high school playing football at Plum high schools and was a four year letterman in football. The said 2008 graduate contributed to 61 varsity wins for Plum over the four years.

For his performance in the play, McGough was hailed as all-section, all-WPIAL as well as all-state performer.

He was instrumental in providing the Mustangs with three section titles and one crack at the WPIAL championship.

McGough was drafted to the Pittsburgh Pirates, which happened in the 48th round during the year 2008 Major League Baseball. He declined an offer to join the Bucs and turned down to college football to play college baseball at the University Of Oregon.

It may be notable that his time in a Ducks uniform helped to improve his draft eligibility and, in 2011, he was drafted in the fifth round, to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He was traded in 2012 to the Miami Marlins organization and made his way through the minor league to the major league to make his debut on August 4, 2015 against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Hebrews on in Baltimore Orioles and Colorado Rockies teams and subsequently did extremely well in the Tokyo Yakult Swallows of the Nippon Professional Baseball of Japan.

From 2019-2022 while playing for the Swallows in Japan, he established himself as a closer accumulating 80 saves and led the Swallows to two consecutive central league titles.

McGough joined the Major League Baseball team, Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2023 and proved his worth after excelling in his first major league save in April of the same year.

That said, with the splitter as his main delivery, McGough registered 86 strike outs in his 70.1 IP.

He also played for the United States National Team in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, where the team got silver.

Bill Rometo

Rometo completed his Plum in 1970 and then began a successful automobile business. He played football, basketball, volleyball, did long jump, shot put, relay and 100 meters sprint.

He was a basketball team captain and a co-captain of the football team in senior year.

Later on, Rometo was at Plum then went to Slippery Rock University to get his degree in health and physical education. He taught at Plum in that capacity for 37 years.

He started his football coaching raping as an assistant in the same year 1975. He was promoted to head trainer of the Mustangs in 1989, and featured 20 years in the position.

All in all, his capacity as a coach lasted 42 years in Plum and Riverview alike.

Credited to Rometo’s coaching were the following;

He was on the staff when Plum recorded the 1983 WPIAL Quad-A champion.

In 1989 Rometo was a recipient of regional media coach of the year and in the same season he was awarded the Gateway Newspapers’ coach of the year.

He received the 1995 Eastern Area Officials and Pittsburgh Steelers Head Football Coach of the Year and the NFL and Pittsburgh Steelers High School Football Head Coach of the Week during the 1996 season.

In 1999 and 2001, Winters was involved at the Foothills Classic senior all star game where he was a head coach for the team.

Rometo recognized his coaching and athletic breakthroughs by being inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, the East Boros Chapter in 2009.

This is in spite of the fact that he remains one of the few head coaches that Plum football history has produced to have made the playoffs in three seasons successively.

Perhaps the greatest achievement in Rometo’s coaching career was in 1996 when he coached the Mustangs into WPIAL playoff against Penn Hills considered the best football team in America at the time.

More to the point, he has the longest coaching record of victory in Plum football history.

Bill and his wife Maryann live in Plum.

Richard Foutz

Foutz, who graduated Plum in 1970, showered his old school with many golf accomplishment.

The Mustangs won WPIAL team crowns in 1968 and 1969 and he won the 1969 WPIAL individual championship.

For his talent and hard work as well as official conduct on the field, Foutz, in the final year, earned Plum athlete of the year award.

Indeed, the golf hero was pioneer of many Plum golf successful individuals and teams for the next following years.

And that includes this fall as the Mustang boys qualified for and competed in the WPIAL team finals, plus senior Wes Lorish advanced to the PIAA state tournament for the third season of his high school scholastic career.

Andy DeFazio

Plum graduate of 1995 was a varsity football, baseball and basket ball player.

He starts in center field all through out the four years he was in college. In the senior season he batted for 0.424, made 29 runs and got 19 steals to lead the Mustangs to achieve the section championship.

That season DeFazio was also selected to all-section and All-East teams.

He also was chosen by the MLB scouts to represent the American legion PA All-West all-star team during 1993, 1994 and 1995. The team moved to the East-West match in 1994 and 1995.

In football, DeFazio was specialized in defensive back, tail back as well as the width receptor.

A three-year defensive starter, he earned several area all-star honors in both junior and senior years.

In his last year of high school he applied for the Wendy’s High School Heisman Award.

DeFazio was offered contracts by teams in MLB but he was not yet done with playing football.

Instead, he got the much deserved admittance in Duquesne University on football and baseball scholarship.

He’s four-year collegiate letter winner who’s played both defensive back in football and outfield in baseball.

DeFazio played Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference football championships during his first and second years at Sacred Heart.

This team had a combined record of 35-8 in his four seasons at Duquesne.Duquesne finally shoes a change of fortunes for Good in a coaching career when his teams posted a combined record of 35-8 in his four seasons at that University. The Dukes secured the East Coast Athletic Conference Bowl in the year 1995.

DeFazio started working in the sales profession after acquiring a bachelor’s degree in 1999. Today he is the owner of Primo Medical, LLC, which company is engaged in distribution of medical devices for spinal surgery.

They Reside in North Huntingdon; he, his wife Meagan, and their three children. He has sustained his passion for sports by coaching area youth as an area youth coach.