Canon-McMillan earns 1st WPIAL baseball title with win over North Allegheny

By: HSSN Staff
Wednesday, May 30, 2018 | 10:39 PM

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With a runner on third and no outs, Canon-McMillan pitcher Zach Rohaley heard the voice of his first baseman.

“Don't let them do it to us again.”

Clinging to a one-run lead, Rohaley escaped that sixth-inning jam by striking out three consecutive batters in Wednesday night's 2-1 victory over North Allegheny in the WPIAL Class 6A final at Wild Things Park.

NA's Ben Surman had hit a leadoff triple, but against the Nos. 3, 4 and 5 batters, Rohaley leaned on his knuckle-curve and a newly added slider to strand him at third. When Rohaley struck out NA's Anthony Hattrop looking for the third out, he leaped off the mound.

“To be able to go out there and get three consecutive strikeouts, I was so pumped up it was unreal,” Rohaley said. “I felt that if I could get through that inning, we were going to win this game.”

The WPIAL title was the first for No. 4 seed Canon-McMillan (17-5), which was making its first championship appearance. No. 10 seed North Allegheny (13-11) rallied to defeat Canon-Mac in last year's semifinals, but Rohaley made sure it didn't happen again.

The Wheeling Jesuit recruit was locked in a pitchers' duel with NA starter Luke Trueman, who allowed just two runs on four hits and two walks. Rohaley allowed only one run on four hits and no walks.

“I told him, they did it to us last year, don't let them do it to us again,” first baseman Ian Hess said. “You know what to do.”

Said Rohaley: “He was out there pumping me up: ‘Come on dude, we've got this. We're right here.' ”

Canonsburg High School won WPIAL titles in 1935 and 1936, but the school had never reached the finals as Canon-McMillan. Third-year coach Tim Bruzdewicz led the Big Macs to the WPIAL semifinals in 2016 and 2017, before finally breaking through this season.

“Right now I don't have any feeling, I'm just soaking it in,” said Bruzdewicz, as his team celebrated with the Canon-McMillan crowd that made the short trip to Washington. Bruzdewicz previously won a WPIAL title as West Allegheny's pitching coach.

“We're excited,” he added, “but like I told the guys, we've still got four more games to play.”

The state playoffs start Monday.

North Allegheny was the WPIAL runner-up for the second year in a row under second-year coach Andrew Heck. Both championship losses were decided by one run. NA lost 3-2 to Pine-Richland last season.

“Tonight hurts more because we had opportunities, and we didn't capitalize,” Heck said. “We had a couple of innings where we had opportunities to either tie the game up or to take the lead. That's just the way it goes.”

North Allegheny stranded a runner on third four times.

NA had a final chance in the seventh when Ryan Dougherty drew a leadoff walk and later stole third with two outs. When Rohaley's pitch count reached 102, teammate Cam Weston relieved him and struck out NA's Turner White for the final out.

In the sixth, Heck was close to waiving Surman home for a possible inside-the-park home run after his sinking liner bounced past Canon-McMillan center fielder Nicolas Serafino and rolled toward the fence. But the Big Macs outfield recovered quickly and Surman likely would have been out at home.

“If I send him and he gets thrown out, we're sitting here talking about a whole different thing,” Heck said. “You've got three, four, five coming up with nobody out and a man on third. I guess the old saying is a leadoff triple never scores, but I felt like we were in a great situation there.”

Canon-McMillan scored both runs in the third inning. Brandon Kline drew a two-out walk, Cameron Walker had an RBI triple and Hess followed with a run-scoring single to lead 2-0.

North Allegheny scored its run in the fourth. Justin Hamm was hit by a pitch and scored on Dougherty's triple.

Chris Harlan is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at charlan@tribweb.com or via Twitter @CHarlan_Trib.

Tags: Canon-McMillan, North Allegheny