A handful of top district high school football players already have made their college decisions, and some other top prospects recently narrowed their lists of colleges.

Gateway's Shayne Hale (6 feet 3, 235 pounds), ranked among the top linebackers in the country, has decided he will choose among West Virginia, Michigan, Virginia and Ohio State. He was offered scholarships by schools across the country, but neither Pitt nor Penn State made his final list.

"There is no big reason why," Hale said. "I just want to get away a little more than staying around here."

West Virginia also is in the running for Hale's Gateway teammate, Cameron Saddler. A slotback-receiver, Saddler (5-7, 165) has trimmed his list to West Virginia, Michigan, Virginia and Syracuse.

Montour's Christian Wilson (6-3, 235) is being recruited by most schools as a linebacker, although he also plays running back.

Wilson favors Michigan, Rutgers and Clemson, although he said Louisville, North Carolina and Virginia Tech aren't far behind. He also has ruled out Pitt and Penn State.

"I just want to go away to school," Wilson said.

Laurel Highlands tight end-defensive end Kaleb Ramsey (6-4, 270) likes Pitt, Boston College, Syracuse and Minnesota. Ramsey is still recovering from shoulder surgery in February, but said he should be 100 percent by the time preseason practice opens Aug. 13.

Brashear's Ed Tinker, the top prospect in the City League, said he favors Connecticut, Michigan State, Minnesota, Colorado and West Virginia.

Terrelle Pryor, ranked the No. 1 player in the country by some scouting services, has said he will choose among Alabama, Florida, Georgia Tech, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.

Aliquippa receiver Jonathan Baldwin has narrowed his list to Florida, Miami, Michigan, Notre Dame, Pitt and Southern California.

Some of the top seniors in the WPIAL who have made verbal commitments to colleges are Thomas Jefferson lineman Lucas Nix (Pitt), Trinity linebackers Andrew Sweat (Ohio State) and Mike Yancich (Penn State) and Hopewell linebacker David Posluszny (Notre Dame).

What sport?

Not only does Norwin's Mike Shanahan have to pick a college, he has to pick a sport.

Shanahan (6-5, 200), a receiver in football and guard in basketball, has Division I scholarship offers in both sports. He was being recruited more for football, but his basketball stock seems to be on the rise with a good summer on the AAU and camp circuits.

West Virginia, Stanford and Duke were among the schools that offered for football. Akron, Lehigh, Air Force and Robert Morris had offered for basketball.

Shanahan plans to pick a sport in August and then a college.

Central Catholic's Quentin Williams is in a similar situation as Shanahan, although Williams said he wants to play football and baseball in college. Williams (6-3, 225), a tight end-defensive end, has football scholarship offers from Pitt, Boston College, Stanford, Rutgers and Michigan State, among others. But he also is a standout pitcher-outfielder in baseball and some major-league teams are starting to express interest.

"Almost all of the schools I've talked to have no problem with me playing both," Williams said. "It's kind of shocking how baseball has just sky-rocketed with me. I used to see myself as just a football player who played baseball. Now the two go hand in hand."

Face it

Laurel Highlands sprinter Breehana Jacobs, the Post-Gazette Female Athlete of the Year, recently was featured in Sports Illustrated's Faces in the Crowd section.

Besides winning the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dashes at the PIAA Class AAA championships in May, Jacobs also was part of the U.S. 1,600-meter relay team that won a gold medal in the Pan American Junior Championships in Sao Paulo, Brazil, this month.