New Castle adding baseball to tradition
New Castle’s basketball and football teams are rich in history and tradition.
Monday, the school’s baseball team made some history of its own, picking up arguably the biggest win in program history when it defeated District 10 champion Warren, 1-0, in a Class 4A first-round game at Ainsworth Field in Erie.
“It was the first time in school history that we made the state playoffs and obviously the first time we won a state playoff game. It was huge. We made history,” said first-year coach Bill Cook.
New Castle has the second-most wins in WPIAL football history and has one of the top basketball programs in the WPIAL. Reaching the PIAA playoffs has become commonplace for coach Ralph Blundo and the New Castle basketball team, which has won a state playoff game nine years in a row.
But baseball success? New Castle has never won a WPIAL title, and entering this season had won only three postseason games in the last 15 years. Monday’s win was its fourth playoff win in three weeks.
New Castle’s big sophomore right-hander once again came through with a sparkling effort on the mound. Rocco Bernadina, who is 6 feet 5 and also plays basketball, allowed four hits and struck out 12 to improve to 8-1 on the season.
“Rocco was amazing. What he does on the field as a sophomore, I wouldn’t expect that from a senior,” Cook said. “His mentality is ‘Nobody can beat me’ and he goes out and shows it.”
Bernadina has gone the distance in all four postseason games he has pitched, totaling 45 strikeouts in 28 innings. He helped push New Castle (12-10) into the state playoffs after fanning 14 in a 1-0 win against Yough in the WPIAL third-place consolation game.
New Castle went just 8-9 in the regular season, finishing third behind Blackhawk and Beaver, who met in the WPIAL championship. As the No. 9 seed, the Red Hurricanes defeated Elizabeth Forward, 8-1, in the first round, and upset No. 1 Greensburg Salem, 1-0, in the quarterfinals before falling to Blackhawk, 4-3, in the semifinals.
Cook is a Laurel graduate who spent the previous five seasons as a New Castle assistant.
Quite a debut
Playing in his first PIAA playoff game, North Allegheny freshman Cole Young was cool as a cucumber. Actually, you could say he was red hot.
Young had a day to remember in a 10-2 rout of Class 6A District 10 champion Erie McDowell, going 3 for 3 with two home runs and a double. He reached base in all five plate appearances and scored four runs. Young hit solo homers in the fifth and seventh innings.
While the two homers were a bit of a surprise — Young came into the game with one — the performance was not. Young leads the Tigers (18-6) with a .448 batting average and his 26 RBIs are also a team best. Young starts at shortstop and bats cleanup. He has made a verbal commitment to Duke.
Cal’s Kearns delivers
Yet another promising freshman, California’s Jordan Kearns, drove in six runs to lead WPIAL Class 1A champion California (19-1) to a first-round win against District 5 runner-up Rockwood.
What makes Kearns’ performance even more impressive is that he entered the game with 13 RBIs the entire season. But Kearns, the team’s No. 7 hitter, caught fire against Rockwood. He hit a three-run double, two-run single and plated yet another run when he walked with the bases loaded. Overall, he reached base four times.
Champs eliminated
Two WPIAL champions saw their quests for PIAA titles end in the first round.
Class 5A Shaler lost to Lampeter-Strasburg, 5-1, and Class 3A Steel Valley was defeated by Philipsburg-Osceola, 3-1. Lampeter-Strasburg was the fourth-place team from District 3 and Philipsburg-Osceola the District 6 runner-up.
A week earlier, Shaler (158) won its first WPIAL title in 20 years when it took down Laurel Highlands, 8-1. Strong pitching led by senior Hunter Boyan and junior Nick Rispoli helped the Titans reach the final as the No. 5 seed. They gave up six runs in four WPIAL playoff games.
Steel Valley (13-9) won its second WPIAL title — first since 2014 — after rallying to defeat Hopewell, 5-4, in the final. The fourth-seeded Ironmen trailed, 4-1, before striking for three runs in the seventh and then going ahead on senior Andre Good’s runscoring single in the eighth.