South Fayette falls in PIAA baseball playoffs
South Fayette needed one out to advance to the quarterfinals of the PIAA Quad-A baseball playoffs. Instead, Meadville rallied for the equalizer and scored a 2-1 victory in extra innings June 4 at Washington & Jefferson College’s Ross Memorial Park to end the Lions’ baseball season less than a week after winning their first WPIAL championship since 1999.
“You like to think that is not the case,” said SF manager Ken Morgan of his team experiencing a letdown from winning the District 7 title, “but we didn’t have the energy that we did last week. You have that high of a WPIAL championship and celebrate with the community, but good programs are able to overcome that and refocus.”
It appeared the Lions did refocus as they scored their lone run three batters into the bottom of the first frame. Joey Alcorn, Mitch Dunay and Eli Snider hit consecutive singles for the tally that held up until the top of the seventh because of the Tyler Bedillion. The Lions’ pitcher allowed only three hits over seven frames, did not walk a batter, struck out five and induced 14 groundball outs.
But the Lions’ defense fell apart in the top of the seventh. Tony Cappellino reached base on an error. A two-base throwing error put pinch runner Landon Beck on third base. He scored when Zach Wilson beat out a slow bouncer that hugged the third-base line for an infield single.
In the eighth inning squeezed out the decisive run for its eighth one-run victory in 18 games. Nick Rinella scored the game-winner on a suicide squeeze bunt.
“We were a little surprised,” Morgan said of the call. “They executed it perfectly.”
Rinella broke for home plate and Wyett Smith put down the bunt that went only about 25 feet up the third-base line and was fielded by Richie Dell, whose only play was to throw out Smith at first base.
Meadville had loaded the bases on two walks around an infield single. It was the second consecutive inning in which the Bulldogs scored a run without hitting a ball out of the infield.
“We have been in so many one-run games that I think those experiences helped us in this one,” Meadville coach Bruce Stewart said.
The Lions also suffered from lack of timely hitting. They left at least one runner on base in every inning but the seventh. They stranded 10 base runners, including five in scoring position, and had one runner tagged out at home plate trying to score on a wild pitch. Dunay was the lone multiple hitter with two doubles and a single in three plate appearances.
“We’ve been in a lot of close games where we’ve left small villages on base,” Stewart said. “It’s ironic that the roles were reversed in this one. I was telling our guys that (South Fayette) is letting us hang around. I’ve seen so many times when a team thinks its talent is better but lets the other team hang around and gets beaten at the end.”
And so it was that way for the Lions. Despite being the WPIAL champion, South Fayette lost to Meadville, the District 9 runner-up with a 13-5 mark, and ended their season with a 17-6 record.
Chris Dugan contributed to this story