Pitching dominance fuels Norwin’s postseason surge
Chances are Norwin coach Mike Liebdzinski never saw a WPIAL championship appearance in his baseball team’s future.
It was a late April game against Hempfield, and Norwin’s pitchers walked eight batters, hit five as the Knights were pummeled, 16-5.
“In my 12 years, we haven’t had many games like that, where we got embarrassed,” Liebdzinski said. “I remember it was at that point that I looked at my assistant coaches and said, ‘We don’t have a chance in the playoffs if we pitch like this and play like this.’”
But come Wednesday night, Norwin has a chance to win the first baseball title at the school in 55 years. Go figure.
The reason for Norwin’s playoff success has been pitching — and defense. Norwin’s pitching has been nothing short of spectacular in the playoffs. The Knights have not given up a run in three postseason games. Norwin plays Central Catholic Wednesday night in the WPIAL Class AAAA championship game at Consol Energy Park.
“It is certainly surprising to shut out three really good teams,” said Liebdzinski, whose team is the No. 9 playoff seed.
The postseason shutouts have been against North Allegheny (10), Mt. Lebanon (3-0) and Bethel Park (1-0). This isn’t the first time a team has shut out all its playoff opponents on the way to the final. South Park and Seneca Valley did
it in 2013 and Blackhawk in 2012. But Blackhawk and Seneca Valley got firstround byes and had to only win two games to reach the final.
John Driggers has two of the postseason shutouts for Norwin and will start against Central Catholic. The Vikings are a good-hitting team, but, if Norwin would register another shutout, the Knights would become the first team in at least 61 years to win a WPIAL title in the largest classification without giving up a run in the postseason (records for championship teams are available only to 1954).
A few teams came close to having a zero tolerance in the playoffs. The 1980 Shaler team, considered one of the best in WPIAL history, had two pitching studs in Wayne Schuckert and Ken Karcher and gave up only a run in the quarterfinals. The 1969 Beaver Falls Tigers played four playoff games and gave up only one run to North Hills in the first round. Ron Sciarro pitched a one-hitter in the title game and Hal McClain a no-hitter in the semifinals.
The odd thing about Norwin’s playoff pitching success is that neither Driggers nor No. 2 Nick Amendola is overpowering (Amendola won the WPIAL semifinal). But neither Driggers nor Amendola walked a batter in the three playoff games.
“John’s fastball is probably only about 75 [mph], but it has movement,” Liebdzinski said.
“He throws a cutter, a slider and a curveball, and everything is moving. Amendola throws about 80 [mph]. … We thought going into this year that our offense was probably going to have to carry us a little, like it did in the past. Just because we didn’t have that dominating power pitcher.
”We figured we’d have to score out share of runs to be able to win. The pitching has certainly been a little surprising.”