Christa Rogers might just be the best female high school athlete in Western Pennsylvania this school year.

In the fall, she was named as a setter in volleyball on the Pennsylvania Volleyball Coaches Association Class AA All-State team and has decided to continue in that sport at Morgan State when the 2008-09 school-year begins.

In the winter, she was selected to the All-Section 6-AA team in basketball after averaging 15 points per game.

This spring, she is again running track after taking home four gold medals from the WPIAL Class AA championships last May.

Just how gifted is Rogers, a senior at Quaker Valley High School? What she did at the South Hills Classic track meet 13 days ago provides some insight.

At that meet, Rogers won the 100-meter dash, placed fifth in the 100-meter hurdles and was fourth in the shot put. That's right, the shot put.

Most runners, let alone a sprinter, won't go near the shot put area. Rogers steps into the circle and competes with the heavyweights.

"My sister did it. That's how I got involved," said Rogers, referring to older sibling Jasmine, a 2004 Quaker Valley graduate.

When Jasmine was a junior at Quaker Valley she placed second in the 100, third in the 100 hurdles and fourth in the shot put at the WPIAL championships.

So, Christa, who is 5-foot-10, comes by the unusual track and field mixture honestly.

She also does it for the right reason ... to help make the Quaker Valley girls' team stronger. In the past, Rogers has also run the 200-meter dash, on the 1,600-meter relay and given the javelin a try.

"It is an unusual mixture of events, but she does it to help the team," Quaker Valley coach Jerry Veshio said.

"She has good upper-body strength and that's why she does well in [the shot put]. We had a sprinter a few years back and he did the same thing and, of course, there was Christa's older sister.

"We haven't tried Christa in every event, but there aren't many that she wouldn't be good at. I could maybe see her going into a multi-event competition like the pentathion down the road if she wanted to."

The 100-meter hurdles is Rogers' best event, although she is the two-time defending WPIAL Class AA champion in the 100.

At the Tri-State Track Coaches Association championships this past Saturday at West Mifflin, she went against some of the better Class AAA runners in the hurdles and placed first. She finished in 15.27 seconds and beat Erie McDowell's Laura Kosiorek, Upper St. Clair's Elizabeth Kline, North Allegheny's Cody McCoy and Peter Township's Megan Hahn.

Kline was third in the event at the WPIAL Class AAA championships last year and Kosiorek was fifth in the race at the PIAA championships.

"I don't think there's much question that the hurdles are her best event," Veshio said. "She has that sprinter's speed and that's what also makes her good in the 100."

It's early in the season, but so far Rogers has the top times in Class AA in the WPIAL in the 100 (12.7) and the 100 hurdles (15.25). She has the sixth best mark in the shot put at 33 feet, 2 inches.

Last spring, she won the 100, 200, the 100 hurdles and ran a leg on the first-place 400-meter relay team at the WPIAL championships.

Then she placed second in the hurdles, third in the 100 and second on the relay at the PIAA championships in Shippensburg.

During the summer, she makes it a point to take 500 shots a day to improve her basketball abilities. So, why is she going to Morgan State for volleyball?

"When I started looking at colleges, I was looking for places that would be a good fit for me," said Rogers, who plans to major in engineering. "I've always loved basketball and I've grown to like track because of the atmosphere. But I sat down with my mother and we looked at schools that would be good fits academically and that's how I decided on Morgan State."

It needs to be pointed out that Rogers is as talented in the classroom as she is on the track or the court. She takes an AP class on-line at home in the morning and four more AP courses during the day. Rogers has an outstanding 4.36 grade-point average.

Another reason she selected Morgan State is because the volleyball coach there, Ramona Riley-Bozier, makes sure academics, not athletics, come first.

And, if things don't work out in volleyball, there's a good chance the track coach at Morgan State would welcome Rogers with open arms. The school's volleyball team was 8-15 this past season after going 23-9 in 2007.

That's all in the future. In the present, Rogers said she is running about a half-second faster in races compared to the same time last season.

Her ultimate goal is to win the PIAA Class AA title in the hurdles and break the PIAA Class AA hurdles record of 14.28 set by Center's Lindsay Dolan in 2006.

"It's hard to imagine her not accomplishing whatever she sets out to do," Veshio said.