WPIAL Baseball Consolation Wednesday Recaps 2015

By: Bruce Markey
Wednesday, May 27, 2015 | 5:33 PM

Four Class AAAA and Class AAA baseball teams from the WPIAL have had the entire holiday weekend to wash away the disappointment of of shattered dreams and a loss in the district Semifinals. Those four returned back to the diamond Wednesday playing for third place in the district but more importantly, a berth in the 2015 PIAA Playoffs.

A special thanks to Greg Kuntz and Scott Majesky for their help on these recaps.

BASEBALL:

Class AAAA Consolation:  Shaler Titans 6 – Bethel Park Black Hawks 3
In the WPIAL Quad A Consolation Game two low seeds with surprising runs for each were trying to continue there ride through the post season.  Shaler Titans finishing 3rd in Section 3 and Bethel Park also finishing 3rd in Section 5 and having to win their final section game to get into the post season.  This game had it all from the teams battling to continue their post seasons! Both aces faced off against each other with a personal and future rivalry brewing as Corey Augustein (Bethel Park) will pitch for University of Pittsburgh next year and Jacob Potack (Shaler) will pitch for West Virginia University next year.  It was Potack who had the upper hand all through out as he commanded the strike zone and fooled Bethel Park hitters all night.  Potack threw a CG 3ER 6K and no walks.  He was supported by a Shaler 4 run 5th that broke the 2-2 tie.  A lead off triple by Noah Hernandez started the rally. However Bethel Park plagued themselves with some mental lapses digging them a hole they could not get out of.  Shaler held on to the lead and won 6-3 and advances to the PIAA playoffs where they will play Pittsburgh Central Catholic in the first round at 4pm at West Mifflin High School on Monday.

Class AAA Consolation:  Montour Spartans 3 – Chartiers Valley Colts 2 in 9 Innings
Both the Chartiers Valley Colts and the Montour Spartans took very different routes to get to the WPIAL Class AAA Semifinals.  Char Valley was the #1 seed, and the Colts steam rolled their way through the first 2 rounds with wins over Derry and another CV initialed team, Central Valley.  They would get upended by the defending champion West Allegheny Indians in the semis.  Montour came into the postseason as the #14-seeded team, and they scrapped scratched, and the Spartans scrapped, scratched, and clawed their way to major upsets over both # West Mifflin and #6 Indiana before losing to Knoch in the Final Four.  Ross Memorial Field in Washington, the home of the W&J Presidents, would provide the backdrop for the AAA Consolation matchup with a berth in the PIAA State Playoffs hanging in the balance.  The first 3 innings took on the character of a classic pitcher’s duel as both Montour’s Trent Vietmeier and CV’s Cole Horew kept the opposing teams off the board.  Montour threatened three times during that stretch as each inning they had a runner in scoring position, but all three runners were stranded by groundout or strikeout by Horew.  Vietmeier looked very sharp as he had only given up 2 hits through the first 4 innings while facing just one batter above the minimum. The Spartans drew first blood in the top of the 4th with a little 2-out lightning.  Todd Police doubled to right-center, and he was driven home on an RBI single by by the next batter, DH Adam Celidonia, and Montour took the 1-0 lead.  It remained that way until the bottom of the 6th.  With 1 out, the Colts Eddie Flohr singled, and he moved to third on a base hit by Horew.  Flohr crossed the plate on a sacrifice fly Brady Gulakowski to tie the game at 1 apiece.  Char Valley threatened to win in walk-off style in the bottom of the 7th as with 2 out, Joe Sibeto tripled to right, but like Montour in the early going, he, too, was stranded, forcing some bonus baseball.  The Spartans got a run in the 8th with some 2-out lighting of their own.  Billy Krull doubled and moved to 3rd on a wild pitch.  He gave Montour a 2-1 lead on Adam Check’s RBI single.  The Colts tied the game in the bottom half of the frame on a couple of coslty errors by Montour.  Nick Kane reached on an error by 3BLuc Nolder, which put him on 2nd.  He moved to third on an error by Vietmeier as he tried to throw out Flohr.  Kane would score on a Montour double play as Horew was ruled out on account of Flohr’s interference with 2B Brady Minetti’s throw to first.  Nevertheless, Char Valley would survive for at least another inning.  The Spartans’ Zach McGowan led off the 9th with a double, and CV coach Jim Jaskowski elected to pull Horew for Ryan Reicoff.  McGowan moved to 3rd on a balk call against Reicoff, and that was followed by a sacrifice fly by Police, which scored NcGowan to give Montour the 3-2 edge.  For the third time in the game, the Colts were on the ropes, but they would not go down with out a fight.  Dante Panucci led off and reached on another Luc Nolder error, but he would stay there on flyouts Jake Ritson and Steve Alausen.  He would finally move to 2nd on a single by Joe Sibeto, putting both the potential tying and winning runs on base.  Both advanced 90 feet on a Vietmeier wild pitch, putting both in scoring position.  However, Konnor Corchado would look at a called 3rd strike to end the game.  The Montour Spartans will face the District 10 AAA champion Erie Cathedral Prep Ramblers in the first round of the PIAA State Playoffs with a 3-2 win over the Chartiers Valley Colts.  The Colts’ stellar season comes to an end at 15-7.  Montour’s season will continue with a 13-10 mark.  Their PIAA 1st-Round opponents, the Erie Cathedral Prep Ramblers, won the District 10 title with a 6-4 win over Slippery Rock.