Don’t blame ‘WPIAL hangover’ for this PIAA 1st-round loss, says Mt. Lebanon coach

By: Chris Harlan
Monday, June 6, 2022 | 7:46 PM

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The Mt. Lebanon baseball team was on the practice field for a rare early-morning, split-squad scrimmage Saturday, just a few days after winning the WPIAL title. The Blue Devils had six days to get ready for their state playoff opener and tried to use them to their fullest.

“We had a great week of practice,” coach Patt McCloskey said. “We had a great defensive practice on Friday. We came out early Saturday morning and I thought we played exceptionally well in an intrasquad game. Then we hit yesterday.

“We had a good week.”

That made Monday’s woes all the more surprising.

Mt. Lebanon managed only two hits, committed five errors and lost to Cumberland Valley, 7-0, in a PIAA Class 6A first-round game at West Mifflin. The Blue Devils entered the fifth inning with no hits and finished with only two singles.

Cumberland Valley (17-6) was the third-place team from District 3.

“We were ready to go and they flat-out beat us,” said McCloskey, who made clear this wasn’t a case of the so-called WPIAL hangover.

That dreaded first-round letdown has tripped up other WPIAL winners in past seasons when they couldn’t bounce back from a championship win. Mt. Lebanon (16-8) celebrated a big one last week over rival Upper St. Clair, 2-1, in the WPIAL finals, earning the Blue Devils their first district title since 2006.

Consider, four of the six WPIAL champions lost their first-round matchups Monday. South Park in Class 3A, Serra Catholic in 2A and Union in A joined Mt. Lebanon with early exits.

But McCloskey said any theoretical “hangover” had no relevance here.

“Zero,” he said, “because everybody wanted to win (a PIAA title) and wanted it badly.”

Mt. Lebanon’s football team won WPIAL and PIAA titles in the fall with some of the same athletes, so they were hoping to repeat that success here in the spring. Lebo won a PIAA baseball title in 1998, but in this year’s tournament, ran into trouble quickly.

Cumberland Valley’s first three batters reached base and scored, handing a 3-0 lead to junior starter Brady Grimes, who pitched a two-hitter with four strikeouts and two walks.

When Mt. Lebanon did hit the ball, Cumberland Valley’s defense was solid. Grimes alone snagged two line drives and also threw out three runners on comebackers to the mound.

Mt. Lebanon’s David Shields broke up the no-hit bid with a leadoff single in the fifth inning, and Joey Daniels led off the sixth with another single, but combined, the Blue Devils went 2 for 22 at the plate.

“They made a lot of plays,” McCloskey said. “I’m not disappointed at all in our approach. That sounds stupid after getting shut out with two hits, but we had a lot of good at-bats.”

Grimes retired the first eight batters in order and allowed only one ball out of the infield in the first three innings — a flyout to left. His strong start let Cumberland Valley lead 3-0 after one inning and 6-0 after four.

“With the way that Brady was dealing, in the second inning I said to one of the other coaches, ‘That will be enough,’” CV coach Levi Mumma said of the three-run lead. “I really did think it would be because you could just tell.”

Cumberland Valley’s only error was a throwing mistake by Grimes on an attempted pickoff. On the other side, Mt. Lebanon had five errors and two wild pitches.

Lebo committed two errors in the first inning, one in the fourth and two more in the sixth. Those miscues coincided with Cumberland Valley’s big innings. The Eagles scored three runs in the first, three in the fourth and one in the sixth.

“The five errors were disappointing,” McCloskey said. “It wasn’t from a lack of effort or a lack of being mentally ready. We just didn’t execute.”

Lebo starter Derrick Shields pitched the first 3⅔ innings, allowing six runs on six hits. David Shields allowed one run on two hits and a walk over 2⅓ innings in relief. Evan Rossi pitched a scoreless seventh.

Cumberland Valley took an aggressive approach at the plate. The Eagles collected nine hits, including three by leadoff batter Logan Sauve, who went 3 for 4 with two triples, a double, two RBIs and three runs scored.

Sauve tripled and scored to start the game.

“They played well and we didn’t,” McCloskey said. “That (7-0 score) is what happens in the state playoffs when only one team plays well.”

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.

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