Jeannette stuns archrival with 4 runs in 12th inning
Jayhawks seize championship in first trip to final
Zander Malik knew when the ball left his bat in the top of the 12th inning that something special had happened.
“I knew it was going to drop so I looked at the fans and told then to get hyped,” the Jeannette senior second baseman said. “I knew we were going to get more runs after that because I could feel the intensity and we would play the best baseball we could.”
Malik’s RBI single off Antonio Cavallo drove in Eric Hall with what turned out to be the winning run and the start of a four-run inning as sixth-seeded Jeannette (15-6) outlasted No. 8 Greensburg Central Catholic (12-5) for a 7-3, 12-inning victory to win the WPIAL Class 1A baseball championship Wednesday at Wild Things Field in Washington, Pa.
It was the first championship game appearance for the Jayhawks, who had never made it to the semifinals before this year. And taking the title against their biggest rival certainly made it sweeter.
“I’ve been coaching baseball and, as long as I’ve been around, they’ve been kicking our butt for the last 13 years,” Jeannette coach Marcus Clarkson said. “It does feel good to do it against them.”
Jeannette had to go through a lot to win its first championship. Not only did the Jayhawks have to battle one of the top pitchers in the WPIAL in Seton Hill recruit Neal McDermott, they had to come from two runs down in their final at-bat to tie the score to send it to extra innings, shrug off a 42minute rain delay and play the longest title game (in innings) since Class 1A was formed in 1999.
“Winning it against them makes it even better,” Malik said. “That’s our rival, and they’ve been our rival since before I was born and they beat us twice in the regular season. They thought this was going to be a cakewalk, and we came out with a win.”
Trailing, 3-1, in the top of the seventh, Jeannette caught a break when Greensburg Central Catholic was forced to pull McDermott after he reached his PIAA-mandated 100-pitch limit. Cavallo took with one on and none out and was victimized by two errors by shortstop Nicholas Ruggeri that led to a pair of unearned runs that tied the score, 3-3.
After Malik drove in the go-ahead run in the 12th, a bases-loaded balk on his first pitch attempt by reliever Joel LoNigro led to one run and a dropped fly ball by right fielder Danny Erdely with the bases loaded led to another pair and gave Jeannette some much-needed insurance.
“It’s part of playing the game and sometimes it happens,” Greensburg Central Catholic coach Dennis Reist said. “They had an error, and we didn’t capitalize on it and they capitalized on our errors.”
While McDermott was pitching, Greensburg Central Catholic was in complete control. He allowed one run and six hits in sixplus innings and struck out three. He also drove in the game’s first run to help the eighth-seeded Centurions build an early, 2-0 lead with a run-scoring triple in the third.
Even after Jeannette chipped away and picked up a run. McDermott was hard to crack.
He danced around trouble and left two runners in scoring position in the fourth, one in the fifth and one in the sixth before he had to leave.
In the meantime, Greensburg Central Catholic regained its two-run edge when Cavallo singled home Ethan Bailey in the sixth. The Centurions appeared ready to put the game on cruise control with McDermott headed back to the mound, but, after a single to Drake Petrillo, Reist came out to the mound and took the ball away from his starter.
“I don’t think it changed it much other than you’ve got a strikeout pitcher coming out of the game and they could put the ball in play more, but they did a good job of putting the ball in play with McDermott,” Reist said. “Honestly, they hit the ball where we weren’t with little pop-ups and soft liners that were falling in front of our outfielders.”