Gamble pays off as Colby Weber sparks Shaler to rare 2-game sweep of West Allegheny

By: Chris Harlan
Wednesday, April 9, 2025 | 11:58 PM

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Shaler ace Colby Weber left the mound Monday after throwing only 19 pitches, a strategic gamble by his coach that paid off handsomely two days later.

His short relief stint kept Weber eligible to pitch again Wednesday, and the 6-foot-6 senior struck out 11 as Shaler defeated host West Allegheny, 10-3, to sweep the two-game section series.

The East Carolina recruit allowed one run on five hits and one walk in six innings.

“We felt that we had an excellent chance to win this game (with Weber), but still it’s West Allegheny,” Shaler coach Brian Junker said. “I don’t think we’ve ever swept them.”

Having Weber for this game gave Shaler (7-3, 4-0) a clear advantage. West Allegheny (2-5, 0-2) had exhausted its top two pitchers on Monday in Game 1, which Shaler won 4-3 in 12 innings.

But Weber was available only because Junker admittedly “rolled the dice.” He could have let Weber keep pitching Monday after throwing scoreless sixth and seventh innings but chose to preserve his arm for Game 2.

Throwing only 19 pitches meant Weber needed no rest.

“That was a tough decision,” Junker said. “We went like 45 seconds without running a guy out there (for the eighth inning on Monday). I didn’t know what to do. But I said, ‘We can’t lose both in this type of section.’

“So, I rolled the dice a little bit, took him out and played more for Wednesday.”

Ultimately, his strategy saw Shaler win both.

The two-game series sweep kept the Titans alone atop the Section 3-5A standings. Pine-Richland (8-1, 3-1) is second in the section.

“Every win is important no matter what, especially in this section,” Weber said. “We’ve got a lot of good teams. West A is a very good team, and we battled.”

The hard-throwing Weber held West Allegheny scoreless into the fifth inning. That let Shaler build a 3-0 lead against Indians starter Donovan O’Connor, a freshman who allowed three runs in five solid innings.

Shaler scored seven times off West A’s bullpen.

“We did what we could to win that game Monday, and we came up short on it,” West Allegheny coach Bryan Cornell said. “We knew we were going to get Colby Weber today, so we needed to get that win.”

Max Saban led Shaler with three hits while Weber, Joey Rispoli and Colby McGuire had two apiece. All four had RBIs with Rispoli driving in two.

Shaler collected 14 hits but also took advantage of five walks and four West Allegheny errors.

“We ended up throwing two freshmen pitchers, and O’Connor did well,” Cornell said. “I liked a lot of things that we did, but you just can’t make mistakes when you’re going against one of the better pitchers in the WPIAL.”

Shaler led 4-1 in the sixth inning after Logan Bauer singled and scored. The Titans sent 10 batters to the plate in the seventh and turned the score lopsided with six more runs to lead 10-1.

Junker let relievers Nate Bartolowits and Victor Kieran pitch the seventh with a nine-run lead. West Allegheny, which scored one run in the fifth, added two in the seventh.

Brandon Boyce doubled and scored for West A. It was the only extra-base hit Weber allowed.

“My stuff was really good today,” said Weber, who threw 66 of his 92 pitches for strikes. “It felt like I was on top of everything.”

Weber has struck out 43 batters in 25 innings this season. He had 12 strikeouts in a win over Allderdice last week.

Junker wasn’t sure if Weber had his max velocity Wednesday on a fastball that tops 90 mph, but said it’s also not his only pitch nowadays.

“Slider, curveball, splitter. He’s got things that move every way, and he can work off those pitches,” Junker said. “He has become a much better pitcher, so he had everything going.”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

Tags: Shaler, West Allegheny