CRUSADERS FALL TO DISTRICT 4 CHAMP LOYALSOCK 3-2 IN STATE QUARTERFINALS
Harold Zeigler made the trip to Pine Grove on Thursday for the PIAA Double-A baseball quarterfinals. It was not a good day for District 3 champ Lancaster Catholic, which fell to Loyalsock and was eliminated from the state tournament. But what a ride for the Crusaders. Here’s Zig’s story from Friday’s New Era:
PINE GROVE — Lancaster Catholic got what it wanted, or at least what coach Mike Davis wanted.
Deadlocked in a 2-2 game and trying to escape a bottom-of-the-seventh-inning jam, Catholic’s coach walked to the mound. Loyalsock had runners at first and second with one out.
“I told them I wanted to see a slider, make (the hitter) roll over on it, hit it to the shortstop,’’ Davis explained later.
“Turn the best double-play you guys ever turned.’’
Loyalsock catcher Brian Stopper obliged. He hit a sharp grounder to shortstop Kevin Cotchen, a perfect double-play ball. But the team that had relied on its defense all season long couldn’t execute.
Cotchen gave second baseman Mike Marinaro a good throw, but Marinaro, trying to tag the bag and field the throw at the same time, lost focus. The ball went off his glove and rolled 10 feet away.
Tangled up with the base-runner, Marinaro couldn’t recover quickly enough. Tyler Pinkerton rounded third and came home without a throw to lift Loyalsock to a 3-2 win in the PIAA Double-A quarterfinals at Stump Stadium.
Bitterly ironic, it was the only error in the game.
“To have the season end on such a garbage play…’’ Davis said, gritting his teeth over the unearned run.
“I would’ve rather seen the guy hit it out of the park.’’
District 4 champion Loyalsock moves on. The Lancers, now 20-4, will take on Brandywine Heights in the state semifinals Monday.
District 3 champ Lancaster Catholic goes home, its 18-7 season over three wins shy of a state title.
“We told these kids what they were capable of. We told them they could win a state championship,’’ Davis said.
“I don’t think they overachieved at all. Every time we challenged them to play better, they played better. “We thought we could win.’’
Through 6 1/2 innings, the game befitted a state-playoff contest. Both teams were flawless in the field. Catholic’s pitchers hadn’t walked a batter. Loyalsock pitchers Colin Kelly and Alex Cillo combined to strike out 12 Catholic hitters.
Catholic took a 1-0 lead in the first on Evan Montgomery’s leadoff double and Freddy Jankowski’s sacrifice fly RBI. Stopper homered in the second to tie it for Loyalsock.
The Lancers went up 2-1 in the fifth on a bunt single, stolen base, and Pinkerton’s RBI single. Catholic tied it 2-2 on Tim Jones’ solo homer in the sixth.
Catholic only mustered four hits. Kelly fanned eight and scattered three hits in five innings. The junior, who has been back for only a month after recovering from Tommy John surgery, continually hit 83-84 on the radar gun.
Cillo went the final two innings, fanning four and allowing only Jones’ homer. He was just as fast as Kelly.
“We haven’t seen pitching like that all year,’’ Davis said.
Loyalsock had 11 hits and Catholic reliever E.J. Harley continually wriggled out of trouble.
“We’d been holding them off, kind of playing with fire a little bit,’’ Davis said.
Harley walked Pinkerton to lead off Loyalsock’s seventh. He was sacrificed to second, and Davis walked Kelly intentionally.
That when he walked to the mound, asked Harley for sliders and his infielders for a double play.
“We were pretty confident we were going to take this to extra innings and win,’’ said the coach.
It didn’t turn out that way.
“He just took his eye off the ball. It’s that simple,’’ Davis said of Marinaro. “And that happens. That’s baseball.’’
Davis pleaded for an interference call when Marinaro got tangled with Kelly at second, but he knew better.
“They’re not going to call that,’’ he admitted.
Davis said he’ll remember his team as one that didn’t have a lot of superstars but had a great chemistry.
“For the most part, we just have a bunch of scrappy players,’’ he said.
They also played the game fundamentally sound. That’s what made the ending so hard to take.
“That just kills me,’’ Davis said. “That one play, I hate to see the season end on that.’’
NOTES: Stopper went 3-for-4 and threw out two base-runners trying to steal …. Loyalsock left nine runners on base, six in scoring position …. Jones homered in two of his last three games and went 5-for-8 in that span.
