Baseball

USC’s pitching, defense stop Mtn. Lions’ successful season

PIAA 6A baseball

The Altoona baseball team has been on a magical run the past month, so when Ethan Hileman hit a sharp grounder up the middle with the Mountain Lions down by two runs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh inning on Monday against Upper St. Clair, many in the large crowd at Mansion Park probably assumed the game was about to be tied.

This time, it wasn't meant to be.

The Panthers pulled off a flashy double play after a diving stop that sealed a 2-0 victory for Upper St. Clair in the first round of the PIAA Class 6A high school baseball playoffs and ended a remarkable season for the Mountain Lions.

"To our credit, in the last inning, we went down fighting," Altoona coach Tom Smith said. "That's what these guys have done all year. Place the ball a little bit differently on that last one, maybe we get a two-run single instead of a double play with the bases loaded."

Altoona started five seniors on Monday, including the top four batters in its lineup -- Matt Moyer, Aidan Steinbugl, Lucas Muffie and starting pitcher Erik Rhodes.

"This team is just amazing to me," Steinbugl said. "Coming to practice every day, it was a joy. Usually, I'm ready for school ball season to be done, whether it's football or baseball, but this year is one that I will never forget. I didn't want it to end. It's just every one of these 18 guys on this team are absolutely amazing. They surprise me each and every day and make us laugh, and they made baseball really fun."

The Mountain Lions won 15 games, their first District 6 championship in a decade and captured the Mid-Penn Commonwealth division title.

"It was a great run that you hate to see end," Smith said. "We were hoping to go further, but we lost to a good team today. We'll sit back and talk about our league championship and district championship, but I'm sure everybody is a little bit down. All of a sudden, you don't show up tomorrow, and that's the reality of playoffs."

Monday's game was scoreless through three innings. Upper St. Clair's Hunter Schroeck tripled with two outs in the top of the fourth inning and came into score on a wild pitch one pitch before Christian Wieczenski lined out to end the inning.

One inning later, Mateo Cepullio singled with one out, moved to second on a passed ball, stole third and scored when the throw went into the outfield.

Altoona was playing without its starting catcher, Sean Bettwy, who is completing a required week of training for the Naval Academy.

"We didn't score, so I don't want to use that as a reason," Smith said. "He's a good ballplayer, but any time you have one hit into the seventh inning, you have to tip your cap to the other team."

The Mountain Lions were held to just one hit -- a one-out single by Michael Riccio -- through six innings by Upper St. Clair starting pitcher Brandon Liokareas, a Seton Hill commit.

"He pitched really well and was efficient," Upper St. Clair coach Jeff Donati said. "The threw three pitches for strikes, we played great defense behind him. He didn't have much traffic on the bases all day. He did a nice job."

Steinbugl led off the bottom of the seventh inning by hitting one of the hardest balls of the day, but it was right to an outfielder. Muffie followed with an infield single, Rhodes walked and Connor Blough had an infield single to load the bases with one out before the double play.

"It's just how baseball goes," Steinbugl said. "I think all of us were hitting the ball pretty decent, but in baseball you can hit the ball really, really hard and it goes right to someone. That's why baseball is really beautiful and very hard. That's just how it happens."

Altoona gathered in its locker room for a lengthy discussion following the Mountain Lions' final game before many players still feeling the emotion of the loss emerged.

"I can't say enough about our coaching staff," Steinbugl said. "Coach Smith, especially. He deserves everything this year. He was the coach of the year, by far. Just everything the coaching staff does for us is amazing, and it's crazy how far we came. I don't think anyone expected our season to go like this, and we're very grateful and sad to see it come to an end."

UPPER ST. CLAIR (2): Cepullio cf 411, Mandler ss 300, Shearer 2b 301, Lagoni c 300, Speer rf 300, Liokareas p 301, Schroeck 1b 311, Wieczenski 3b 201, Eberle lf 200. Totals--26-2-5.

ALTOONA (0): Moyer 3b 300, Steinbugl ss 300, Muffie cf 301, Rhodes p-rf 200, Blough rf 301, Saylor 1b 000, Hileman lf 300, Alwine 1b-p 200, Lindsey c 000, Riccio dh 201, Weyandt 2b 100. Totals--22-0-3.

SCORE BY INNINGS

Upper St. Clair 000 110 0--2 5 0

Altoona 000 000 0--0 3 2

E--Hileman, Lindsey. 2B--Shearer. 3B--Schroeck. RBI--none.

PITCHING

Upper St. Clair: Liokareas (W)--7IP, 3H, 6K, 2BB, 0R, 0ER, 91 pitches.

Altoona: Rhodes (L)--6IP, 5H, 5K, 3BB, 2R, 1ER, 94 pitches; Alwine--1IP, 0H, 1K, 0BB, 0R, 0ER, 8 pitches.

Umpires: Tony Kline (plate); Andy Lubert (1B); Karl Bopp (2B); Ed Richardson (3B).

Records: Upper St. Clair (13-10); Altoona (15-7).