Riverside victory gives coach Oliastro 5th title

Joins elite group after 7-1 triumph vs. Mount Pleasant

After his team won its fourth PIAA baseball title five years ago, Riverside coach Dan Oliastro changed his jersey number from 4 to 5 to provide some motivation.

“I did it because I thought we still had something left in the tank to get five,” Oliastro said.

That fifth PIAA title hasn’t come yet, but Oliastro now has enough WPIAL titles to match his jersey number.

Riverside defeated Mount Pleasant, 7-1, Tuesday afternoon to win the WPIAL Class 3A title at Wild Things Park in Washington. The win made the vene r abl e Oliastro only the third coach in the history of the WPIAL to win five championships.

“Wow. I didn’t know that,” he said.

The only others to win five are current Neshannock coach Mike Kirkwood, and Abby Fallquist, who had six titles when he coached McKeesport from the late 1920s into the 1960s.

“You know what? It never gets old,” said Oliastro, 73, who is in his 49th season and has a 626-390 record. “And this is one of the nicest groups I’ve ever had. Why? Because they have bought into everything we’ve wanted to do. Sometimes with teams, you get 70 or 80 percent buy-in. It’s 100 percent with this one.”

Riverside (18-1) also won a WPIAL title a year ago by a shutout and became only the second team in 80 years to win two consecutive titles.

Riverside pitcher Christian Cicchinelli gave up only three hits in six innings while raising his record to 7-0. His ERA is 0.67. Cicchinelli also had two run-scoring singles.

“It definitely wasn’t my best performance,” said Cicchinelli, who walked five and struck out three. “But my defense had my back every second. I owe this game to them.”

Mount Pleasant was hurt by four errors, including two in the first inning that led to two runs. Riverside scored two in the fifth with two outs and added three more in the seventh, with Gunnar Boehm’s two-run double the big hit.

Mount Pleasant scored its only run in the sixth on Jared Wagner’s single.