Wolfe beats cancer before his latest WPIAL title
Kurt Wolfe was talking to a reporter after his PineRichland baseball team won a WPIAL championship Thursday night, when a few players came up behind Wolfe and bumped him, before the celebratory dousing with ice water.
The previous time Wolfe won a championship, everyone had to be careful of the chemotherapy pack he had at his waist.
It had been seven years between championships for Wolfe, but he already had one gigantic victory before this latest title.
Kurt Wolfe 1, Stage IV colorectal cancer 0.
“He never talks about it, but we all know,” said Craig Kunkel, Pine-Richland’s junior first baseman.
They know Wolfe is known as a winner, and it has nothing to do with WPIAL trophies. Before the 2010 season, he was diagnosed with cancer that had spread to parts of his liver. But Wolfe kept coaching, even while going through chemotherapy treatments. For some games, Wolfe still coached third, while he had the chemo pack with him, taking the drug through a port in his chest. Pine-Richland went on and won a WPIAL title that year.
“I’d say he’s inspiring,” said Ryan Okuda, a standout senior pitcher for Pine-Richland. “To go through what he did and still have the attitude, approach and outlook on life that he has, it’s extraordinary.”
Wolfe was given the WPIAL’s annual Courage Award a few years ago. He said the battle against cancer changed him. And get this: he wouldn’t change a thing about that part of his life.
“I’m a better person for it,” said Wolfe. “I’ve told my wife that I would never change what happened for the world, and I said that when I didn’t even know if I would be here today. It just made me such a better father, a better husband, teacher and coach.
“I just look at things differently now. In the past, if a parent would’ve called me and swore at me, I would’ve said, ‘Forget you.’ For example, I got a call this year from a parent, and it was basically 15 minutes of calling me a piece of crap.
“I got off the phone and my wife asked me why I wasn’t angry. I said, ‘because I have to pray for that guy. He’s lost. Something is wrong there.’ I felt bad for him. I would’ve never said that before.”
The long games
The WPIAL baseball championship games never lasted as long as this season. This was the first year that two title games went to extra innings, and they were two of the longest games in at least 75 years.
California beat Freedom, 3-1, in 10 innings to win the 2A championship, and Jeannette beat Greensburg Central Catholic, 7-3, in 12 innings to win the 1A title. Since 1940, only three other title games lasted 10 or more innings — and California, coincidentally, was involved in one of them.
In 1975, California lost to Beaver Falls, 1-0, at Three Rivers Stadium. In 1972, Montour defeated Penn Hills, 3-1, in 12 innings at Three Rivers. In 1957, Freeport beat Mt. Lebanon, 5-3, in 1957.
New pitching rules
Look back at old championship and playoff results of decades ago, and it is amazing how different things are in high school baseball these days in the area of protecting pitchers arms.
In the WPIAL Class 1A final Wednesday, Greensburg Central Catholic ace Neal McDermott left the game after the sixth inning with a 3-1 lead.
He had reached the maximum 100 pitches allowed under new PIAA rules. Without McDermott on the mound, Jeannette scored twice in the seventh to tie it and won in the 12th. Under the new rules, a pitcher can’t throw more than 200 pitches in a week and needs at least three days rest if he throws 100 pitches.
Now go back 45 years to the WPIAL title game when Montour beat Penn Hills, 3-1, in 12 innings. Jeff Panizzi pitched all 12 innings for Montour and threw close to 200 pitches, according to Post-Gazette stories. This came after he pitched four innings only two days earlier. So that’s 16 innings in three days.
Then there was 1985 when Andy Bednar, now the coach at Mars, pitched three complete games over seven days for Sto-Rox in the WPIAL playoffs. And Bednar won all three.
Sister Act V
Call it a sister phenomenon.
Five of the six softball teams that won WPIAL championships had sisters in the starting lineup. The WPIAL never had more than four classifications before, so this is a sister record. The only team that didn’t have sisters in the starting lineup was Hempfield.
Class 1A champ West Greene led in sister acts with two — twin sisters McKenna and Madison Lampe, and also Madison and Jade Renner. Class 2A champ Frazier had twin sisters Lauren and Kara Mastowski.
Class 3A champ Ellwood City had Natalia and Skyla Greco. Mekenzie and Alex Sokol started for 4A champ Belle Vernon, while Brook and Britney Wilson started for 5A champ West Allegheny.