Fast start answers questions for Seton LaSalle
After winning a WPIAL Class 2A title and reaching the PIAA semifinals in 2019, Seton LaSalle was supposed to be even better in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic wiped the entire season away.
Fast forward to 2021, and the Rebels graduated seven seniors from last year’s team, including five who are playing baseball in college. On top of that, star pitcher and Kentucky recruit Drew Lafferty transferred to South Park after a stellar freshman season in 2019, leaving the team with plenty of question marks going into the spring.
It’s still early, but consider most of those questions answered.
Seton LaSalle is off to a 5-0 start and looking like the team to beat in Class 2A once again, winning its past four games by a combined score of 654. The Rebels fired three no-hitters in a row while rattling off three consecutive shutouts by scores of 16-0, 20-0 and 12-0, then allowed one hit in a 17-4 win vs. Bishop Canevin on Friday.
“We’ve only given up one hit in the last four games,” said Seton LaSalle coach Mike Wagner. “We have a very deep pitching staff.”
Wagner said he learned a lot about his team during the fall season, when the Rebels won a league featuring more than 30 high school teams across all six classifications.
“We were playing a bunch of topfive [Class] 5A schools and [Class] 6A schools,” Wagner said. “That’s the only way you get better.”
And remember — this is without Lafferty, who emerged as the ace of the staff in 2019 while reaching the low-90s with his fastball. In his place, junior Sam Georgiana has taken over as the team’s No. 1 starter — a role he wasn’t too far off from as a freshman, when he finished 5-1 with a 1.84 ERA.
In his first two starts this season, Georgiana is 2-0 with a 1.27 ERA and 17 strikeouts in 11 innings pitched.
“Drew always pushed Sam to be better,” Wagner said. “I think Sam wants to be the ace. That freshman year, I was comfortable pitching either one of them in any game. They both were tremendous.”
Joining Georgiana in the rotation are juniors Ethan Parker and Brett Wagner, the coach’s son. Sophomore Brian Reed has stepped into the closer role, and Wagner said all four members of the pitching staff are capable of reaching the mid-80s with their fastballs.
But while pitching is once again a strong suit for the Rebels, their bats are what really make this team dangerous.
Five members of the starting lineup are batting above .500 so far, and six players already have at least 5 RBIs. Wagner is at the forefront with a .667 batting average, a home run, a triple, 2 doubles, 9 runs and 10 RBIs.
Wagner, who starts at third base when he’s not pitching, had a strong freshman season with a .308 batting average and 25 RBIs, but he’s almost unrecognizable to his father now. Two years ago, he stood about 5 feet 8 and weighed about 235 pounds. He has since transformed his diet and hit a growth spurt, and is now listed at a chiseled 6 feet 2, 205 pounds.
“He eats a bunch of kale in his diet. He puts it in his blender,” Wagner said. “Brett has always been like me — I have a sweet tooth. Now Brett won’t even touch junk food.”
Wagner’s daughter, Lexi, is a junior outfielder for Oregon, the No. 3 softball team in the country. He said he never envisioned his son would join her as a Division I-caliber prospect, but he isn’t ruling it out anymore.
“I never looked at him that way,” Wagner said. “We started to see in the preseason workouts before we got canceled [last year], you could see it was different. The ball was coming off the bat different. He was focusing on his body and working on his game. He’s in the gym at 8 a.m every morning with a trainer, five days a week.”
Freshman second baseman Gio Lonero has been a welcome addition to Seton LaSalle’s lineup, batting .600 with 9 runs and 8 RBIs. Junior shortstop Brian Vogel is hitting .312 with 7 runs and 9 RBIs, and senior Cam Colwell is hitting .455 with 5 RBIs, 7 runs and a team-leading 8 walks while splitting time between catcher and center field. Georgiana is also getting it done at the plate, batting .545 with 8 RBIs.
Wagner wasn’t sure what to expect after losing so much talent from the 2019 title team, but he’s not exactly surprised by his team’s start, either.
“I think the fall season gave us much more insight, because when Drew left, I wasn’t sure,” Wagner said.
Although Seton LaSalle has been as dominant as any team in the WPIAL so far this season, the Rebels have yet to truly be tested against a top-five opponent. Wagner was impressed with his team’s 12-0 win vs. Laurel — a team that pushed Seton LaSalle to the brink in a pair of onerun playoff games in 2019 — but now he wants to find out how the Rebels stack up against some of the top teams in the WPIAL.
“We’re always trying to play the teams at the top,” Wagner said. “I think it helps us prepare for the playoffs. I certainly don’t expect to go 20-0 in the regular season. I want us to get pushed. And you’re going to lose a couple games if you do that, just like a couple years ago.
“There’s a state title out there we thought we should have won, and we didn’t. If you want to win it, you’ve got to earn it, so hopefully we can get it together and go on a run this year and make it happen.”