Dana Petruska, Mars Area High School Girls Varsity Basketball Coach, was named 2017-2018 Butler Eagle Girls Basketball Co-Coach of the Year.

Petruska, who shares the honor with Slippery Rock High School coach Amber Osborne, led the Lady Planets to win the 2017-2018 PIAA Class 5A Girls Varsity Basketball Championship title, the team’s first state title in school history. The team also took fourth place in this season’s WPIAL Class 5A Girls Varsity Basketball Championship and tied for the Section 4-5A title.

During the 2016-2017 season, Petruska earned her 400th career win, a combined record that includes more than 290 wins she compiled as head coach of the Lady Planets from 1986 to 2005, then 2015 to present. In the interim, she earned 111 wins as a coach of Deer Lakes High School Girls Varsity Lady Lancers Basketball Team.

A 1975 graduate of Deer Lakes High School, Petruska was recruited by the University of Pittsburgh Panthers Women’s Basketball Team, for which she played under head coaches Jean Condo, Pat Wallace and Jean Balthaser.

Petruska served as a physical education teacher at Mars Area High School from 1996 until retiring this past January. She also previously coached softball.

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