Upper St. Clair looks back on baseball season
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Shortstop Herb Gordon applies the tag at second base.
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Dom Cepullio fouls off a pitch during WPIAL Class 6A baseball playoff action in which Upper St. Clair lost to Butler, 4-1.
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Upper St. Clair pitching coach Pat Gannon meets for a conference on the mound with Nathan Hamel and Alex Gasper during WPIAL Class 6A baseball playoff action. The Panthers lost to Butler, 4-1.
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Nathan Hamel unleashes a pitch to the plate during WPIAL Class 6A baseball playoff action in which Butler defeated Upper St. Clair, 4-1.
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Herb Gordon slides into second base.
With mixed emotions, Jerry Malarkey looked back on his 34th season as Upper St. Clair baseball manager. The 2018 campaign commenced with the skipper recording his 400th career victory and ended with a 4-1 loss to Butler in first round of the WPIAL Class 6A playoffs.
“I was very proud of how our players battled all season long,” Malarkey said. “The chemistry on this team was as good as on any team in my years as head coach. That chemistry contributed greatly to the team’s success.”
The Panthers finished 12-7 overall after taking third placed in Section 3 with a 6-6 slate.
They lose six seniors to graduation but return a strong contingent of players.
“They provided exemplary leadership to the younger players,” he said. “We will miss them greatly but by the same token we look forward to next year because we have the nucleus to be competitive and make it back to the playoffs.”
In the playoffs, the Panthers ran into a buzz saw named Connor Ollio. The North Carolina recruit struck out nine batters, including the side in the top of the seventh after surrendering a lead-off double to AJ Palmieri. He surrendered three other hits, all singles to lead-off hitter Ryan Ghise. Ollio also socked a two-out, solo home run in the fifth to seal the victory.
“We read and heard a lot about Iolli,” Malarkey said. “Often times you take what you hear with a grain of salt because some of it probably isn’t accurate. In this case though, everything we heard about how good he is was true. He had good velocity and a major league caliber slider.”
However impressed Malarkey was with Ollio, he likewise was pleased with how his Panthers battled. They had the bases loaded in the fifth but batted into a double play to end the threat. A double play also ended an uprising in the third.
“Our players really competed at the plate,” Malarkey said. “We put pressure on them in several innings but we just couldn’t get the runs in.”
After Ollio had walked three straight batters-Joe Pulit, Justin Fillippa and Alex Gasper- Ghise drove in the lone run with a base hit in the fifth.
Fillippa captained the squad along with Dom Cepullio, who will play baseball at James Madison University, and Gasper, the starting catcher. A pitcher, Fillippa owned a 0.99 ERA into the final weeks of the season. Jake Pikras, Palmieri and Jonah Auslander were the Panthers’ other seniors. Palmieri led the team in hitting.
In addition to Ghise and Pulit, shortstop Herb Gordon and outfielder Grant Walnoha are returning starters, who played extensively against Butler. Nate Hamel, who pitched against the Golden Tornado, is also an underclassmen.
Jack Beggy, Chad Behun, Luke Geisler, Aden Richter, Mick Walsh, Aochen Zhang, Eli Shedd, Andrew Casey, Brandon Shearer, Jeffrey Warmbein and Tyler Berger are also team members who likely will return to the Panthers’ varsity roster.
South Fayette wins
In the Class 4A playoffs, South Fayette recovered from a four-run deficit to defeat West Mifflin, 14-4.
In the sixth-inning contest, Richie Dell hit and pitched the Lions to victory. On the mound, he struck out nine and scattered six hits. At the plate, he tagged a double and smashed a home run to drive in four runs.
Tyler Bedillion smacked three doubles and drove in a run. Joey Alcorn ripped a two-run double. Matt Primm also socked a two-bagger for the Lions, who were to face Hopewell in a semifinal game scheduled for yesterday (May 22) at Burkett Field.
After a first-round bye, Bethel Park was scheduled to play North Allegheny yesterday (May 22) in the quarterfinals of the Class 6A playoffs. The WPIAL baseball championships are set for May 29 and 30 at the Wild Things Park in Washington.
Notes: Peters Township succumbed to Pine-Richland, 5-1, in the first round of the WPIAL Class 6A playoffs, too.
Dax Ploskina reached base on an error and scored on Tyler Caven’s double for PT’s lone run in the first inning. The Indians had only four hits in the game.
The Indians finished 11-10 overall. They tied with USC and Mt. Lebanon for the final playoff spot with a 6-6 section slate.
WPIAL softball playoffs: Mt. Lebanon lost to Baldwin, 4-1, while Latrobe blanked Peters Township, 10-0. Laurel upset Seton LaSalle, 5-3.