WPIAL Baseball Playoff Recap for Saturday, May 11th

By: HSSN Staff
Saturday, May 11, 2013 | 9:28 PM

The 2013 WPIAL Baseball Playoffs opened Saturday afternoon with one lone Preliminary Round contest. With the Class AAA 16th-seed decide, the stage is now set for a very busy First Round in all four classifications on Monday. Here is the recap from the pigtail game played on a chilly Saturday afternoon.

WPIAL CLASS AAA Preliminary Round:

Yough Cougars 3  –  Knoch Knights 2

The Cougars scored all three runs in the third inning without a ball leaving the infield and held on for dear life in the seventh for their first playoff win in over ten years and a meeting with unbeaten South Park on Monday.

Eric Borkovich beat out an infield single, then beat a force play at second on a ground ball to third. After Tyler Slatosky laid down a sacrifice to move the runners up and Josh Sterner walked to load the bases, setting up one of the key plays of the game.

Knoch elected to have the corner infielders play up to nail the runner at the plate, Luke Spisak hit a chopper to third, Taylor Sharer elected to take a force out at third, rather than coming home for the out at the plate, he then threw across the diamond to try and complete a double play, the errant throw allowed Sterner to move to third base, he scored on Brad Bisko’s infield hit to short, a bad throw by Chase Voltz, also allowed Spisak to score and give Yough a 3-0 lead after three.

Spisak started and did not allow a run over the first three innings, first year coach Jeremy Zufall, pulled the right hander, to allow Spisak to pitch on Monday if needed. Lefty CJ Vargo took over on the hill, he gave up a leadoff double to Andy Fritz, who scored on a Chris Law ground out.

Leading 3-1 and needing three outs in the seventh, Zufall went to the bullpen again, bringing in Slatosky to close the game. Slatosky walked the first two batters, forcing the Cougars to move Vargo back to pitching. He walked Voltz to load the bases, but the game turned on the next batter.

Hunter Balliet hit a fly ball to center field, the sacrifice fly scored Law from third, but Zach Junk delayed tagging from second to third and was tagged out easy on a return throw. With the tying run at second base instead of third, Vargo made a nice play on a Hyte Eurich grounder to get the out and end the game.

Yough had just three hits in the game, Spisak allowed two hits over the first three innings, Vargo got the win, going 4 innings. The Cougars will take a 10-10 record into Monday’s first round game against the Eagles at West Mifflin Middle School field. Game time is 4:30 and can be heard on the MSA Sports Network.

Knoch ends the season at 9-10. The Knights had 5 hits, Balliet was 2 for 3 at the plate. Knoch committed four errors, the Knights have gone ten plus years without a playoff win.