Knoch Finishes Perfect Postseason With PIAA AAA Baseball Title

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, June 12, 2015 | 5:40 PM

Coming into 2015, the Knoch High School postseason resume was nearly empty with only one baseball playoff victory in the history of the program. That all changed big time this spring as the Knights capped off a perfect 8-0 postseason with a 7-5 victory Friday over Abington Heights in the PIAA Class AAA title game at Penn State University.

The win gave the Knights the first state championship in school history in any sport. The victory culminated what has been a storybook season for Knoch who can now boast a double fist full of gold as they won both the WPIAL and PIAA Championships this year.

Medlar Field at Lubrano Park was the site of the AAA PIAA Baseball Championship between the District 2 champion Abington Heights Comets and the WPIAL champion Knoch Knights.  Abington Heights entered the game with an 18-3 mark while Knoch came in at 22-2. The game was played under ideal conditions, bright suuny skies, winds light at 7 mph and 83 degree temperatures. 

The first pitch of the game was delivered at 12:15 from Knoch’s Cole Shinsky to Abington Heights’ Jimmy Fayocavitz.  That it was a ball was a foreshadowing of the difficulties the Knoch ace would face in the early part of the game. Shinsky walked Fayocavitz on four straight pitches and added 3 more balls to Zach Spangenberg before finally throwing a strike. 

Spangenberg lined out to right but Zach Campbell and Tyler Ksiazek followed with back to back singles to load the bases before enticing Eric Salerno to hit into an inning ending 6-4-3 double play to end the Comet threat. 

In the bottom of the first Comet pitcher Zach Manasek only gave up a walk to Chris Law before retiring the side on to fly balls to left fielder Salerno. 

Abington Heights struck in the top of the second when Sam Arnold singled with 1-out.  McDonald’s grounder to 3^rd moved him to 2^nd base and Manasek worked a 3-0 count from Shinsky before being intentionally walked. Fayocavitz grounded to 3^rd baseman Garrett Traggiai who instead of throwing him out at first, made an attempt to get Arnold at third.  Realizing he could not get him he turned to throw to first but held onto the ball as Fayocavitz reached on the fielder’s choice and the bases were loaded. Spangenberg then singled in two runs and on a continuation of the play Fayocavitz was thrown out attempting to reach 3^rd base to end the inning but the Comets took the lead at 2-0. 

Knoch battled back in the bottom of the 2^nd when Asa Adams led off with a single to right center and moved to 2^nd base on a walk to Alex Stobert and to 3^rd base on a Traggiai single to load the bases. Addis Crouch then reached on an error by Comet SS Fayocavitz allowing Adams to score. Hickey hit into a fielder’s choice that saw Stobert thrown out at home for the first out of the inning. Domminick Bucco worked a bases loaded walk picking up the RBI when Trascored to tie the game at 2-2. Law’s fielder’s choice erased Bucko at 2^nd but scored Hickey to give Knoch a 3-2 lead. Shinsky’s 2-out single drove in Hickey to give the Knights a 4-2 lead as Jordan Kowalski grounded out to end the inning. 

Shinsky gave up a single and a walk to the Comets in the 3^rd inning but was able to pitch his way out of the jam.

The bottom of the 3^rd saw Adams once again lead off with a single and then take 2^nd base after an errant pickoff attempt by Manasek. He moved to 3^rd on Stobert’s ground out to 2^nd and scored on Traggiai’s RBI single to right. Ryan Harvey came in to pitch for the Comets and was able to end the inning without any more scoring leaving Knoch up 5-2. 

The top of the 4^th saw the Comets come storming back to tie the score at 5-5. McDonald was hit by a pitch, moved to 2^nd on a ground out and to third when Fayocavitz reached on an error. With 2-outs Campbell singled to center driving in McDonald and moving Fayocavitz to 3^rd. Ksiazek tripled to center to drive in two runs and tie the game at 5.

Ksiazek then came in to pitch and set down the Knights easily in the 4^th and 5^th innings.  Meanwhile Shinsky who had been having some control issues and had been touched for 6 hits, 3 walks and 1 hit batsmen through 4 settled down and found his groove keeping the Comets off the board in the 5^th and 6^th innings. 

The Knights came up to hit in the bottom of the 6^th against Ksiazek who had been dominant the previous two innings. Ksiazek retired the first two batters easily but leadoff hitter Tyler Bucko ripped a triple to the wall to put the lead run 90 feet away with 2-outs. Law worked the count to 2-2 before ripping an RBI single to bring home Bucko with what would be the game winning run. Law then stole 2^nd base and scored when Shinsky blooped a single to the outfield for the insurance run and a 7-5 Knoch lead.

Shinsky quickly got Ksiazek to go out 4-3 and Salerno to ground out 6-3 and put the Knights 1 out away from the title. The celebration was briefly derailed when Shinsky hit McDonald for the second time giving Abington Heights hope. But Alex Stobert quickly extinguished that hope when he made an over the shoulder catch of Sam Arnold’s pop-up to end the game and the celebration began in earnest with a huge dog-pile of Knoch Knights in front of the pitcher’s mound.

Abington Heights, the runner-ups finish the year at 18-4 while the Knoch Knights finish at 23-2. 

Score by innings:

Abington Heights Comets  :  0 – 2 – 0 – 3 – 0 – 0 – 0 : 5 – 8 – 2
Knoch Knights  :  0 – 4 – 1 – 0 – 0 – 2 – x : 7 -10 – 1

Abington Heights : IP   H  R  ER  BB  K  AB BF NP

Zach Manasek     1.2  3  4    1     3     1   9  12  36
Ryan Harvey        1.1  2  1     0    0     0   6   6   22
Tyler Ksiazek       2.2  5   2    2     0     2  13 13 53
Collin McCreary   0.1  0   0    0      0    0   1   1    1

Knoch   :            IP  H  R  ER  BB  K  AB  BF  NP

Cole Shinsky        7   8   5   2     3     3  28  34  99

Tags: Abington Heights, Knoch