Rebels beat Eagles again for WPIAL title

Seton LaSalle’s Mark Weber stifled the Serra Catholic bats in a 5-0 shutout win.

Behind a strong outing on the mound from Mark Weber and opportunistic offense from Seton LaSalle, the Rebels managed to knock off Serra Catholic 5-0 to retain their WPIAL Class 2A baseball title on Wednesday.

A year after the two teams played out an 8-1 ball game at Wild Things Park, they converged at the same site for another final, and again Seton LaSalle (17-3) earned the victory.

“It’s such a long season, even though it’s 10 weeks of regular season, because we’ve been working since the fall for this,” Seton La-Salle coach Brad Bestic said. “It was an expectation for us that if we played our game and did all of the little things, we would be here. So we were happy to be here, and it was outstanding to win another one.”

It was an uncharacteristic showing for Serra Catholic (17-2), finishing with four errors on the day. The Eagles actually outhit the Rebels 8-5, but some mistakes took that advantage away.

“The big hit wasn’t there, we had errors early in the game, it just wasn’t our day,” Serra Catholic coach Brian Dzurenda said. “You have to tip your cap to their pitcher, he did a nice job changing speeds and keeping us off balance.”

Tyler Skaggs was charged with the loss after allowing five runs, just one earned, in three frames.

As for Seton LaSalle, Weber was exceptional on the mound, earning the win behind six innings of scoreless pitching. He posted eight strikeouts and walked one batter.

“We knew that we had strong pitching all year, and Mark just exemplified that with his performance today,” Bestic said. “He was outstanding for us today.”

Bestic added that he wanted his team to start strong and put pressure on the Eagles, and the Rebels did just that with a run to open the game.

Leadoff hitter Aric White drew a walk before Michael Todd was hit by a pitch to quickly put two runners on. Then, White stole third and catcher Jake Holmes opted for a snap throw to first, but it was off line and allowed White to round third and score to make it 1-0. The error allowed Todd to reach second, but the Eagles racked up three straight outs after that.

Isiah Petty hit a leadoff single for Serra Catholic, but he was stranded as the only runner in the bottom of the first. It looked as though Seton LaSalle might quickly add to its lead, but it stranded three runners of its own in the top of the second.

Jesse Fedorek singled and Brayden Carter reached on an error before White drew another free pass to load the bases with two outs. Todd wasn’t hit by a pitch this time, though, and instead grounded into an inning-ending out.

After the Eagles went down with one hit again, the Rebels used another error and a single to put runners on the corners with no outs.

Connor Rothaar stepped up and scored a run with an RBI fly out to right field before Roman LoNero singled to put runners on the corners again with one out.

With the score at 2-0 in favor of Seton LaSalle, Carter blew the game open with a two-run double to ignite the Rebel faithful in the stands and make it 4-0. He scored on the next at-bat as Nate Baxendell reached on an error, but Baxendell ended the inning at 5-0 trying to get to second on the play.

With seemingly everything going against the Eagles, another problem rained down in the bottom of the third: the weather.

From 2:04 to 3:16 p.m., play was delayed due to a downpour of rain and even hail, but both squads eventually made it through.

After the break, Reiger went down with the first swing of the bat as he was on two strikes when the delay was called. From there, Petty, Owen Dumbroski and Zach Black all singled to load the bases, but Weber managed to get out of it.

Jake Holmes hit a ball that bounced into the glove of Baxendell at third, who stepped on the bag and threw over to first for an inning-ending double play to keep the score at 5-0.

“We had bases loaded but we didn’t get the big hit,” Dzurenda said. “They got the double play ball, and that kind of ended our hope at that point. If we got two or three runs on the board, it could have been a different game.”

Dumbroski took the mound for the Eagles out of the break and shut the door on Seton LaSalle, allowing just one hit in four innings of work. He struck out three and walked just one batter.

After a scoreless fourth inning, the Rebels went down in 1-2-3 fashion in the fifth, but more importantly for them again managed to keep the Eagles off the board.

Petty tacked on his third single of the day with one out and eventually reached third, but he ended the fifth after being picked off at third in a rundown.

Weber only got better as the game progressed, putting up seven of his eight strikeouts after the rain delay as he finished his day by hitting the 105-pitch limit with a strikeout of Skaggs to end the sixth.

Josh Burkholder came in from his spot at short to finish the game on the mound and quickly retired the side to claim Seton LaSalle’s second straight WPIAL championship and second in a row over Serra Catholic.

Despite the loss, there is still a silver lining for the Eagles: there’s more baseball to come in the state tournament. Serra Catholic will take on either the District 5 or District 8 champion in first round action on Monday, June 3.

“The bright side is we get to practice tomorrow and play again Monday, so let’s see what happens in the state tournament,” Dzurenda said. “It’s the pinnacle of high school baseball, so it’s neat to play against teams that you haven’t played all year.”