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By John Hartsock
jhartsock@altoonamirror.com
HARMONY -- Bishop Carroll's stunning run through the postseason came to a screeching halt Thursday afternoon.
After making it to the District 6 Class 1A championship game as the tournament's sixth seed, and knocking off defending PIAA lass 1A state champion Clarion High School in an opening-round PIAA playoff game Monday, Carroll ran into a buzzsaw in the quarterfinals in District 10 runner-up Saegertown, which used a quality pitching effort and a relentless batting attack to mercy-rule the Huskies, 11-0, in a game that was played at the Seneca Valley High School baseball field.
Freshman right-hander Blake Burchill tossed a tidy three-hit complete-game shutout, striking out four batters and walking none, and received more than enough offensive support from a Saegertown offense that mashed out 13 hits, including a homer, double and single by junior first baseman DeMarcus Manning, who accounted for four RBIs in the game.
Carroll coach Bill Schenk, whose team finished its season at 11-14, led the Huskies to their first berth in the PIAA quarterfinal round since 2011 this year.
"I'm very proud of what this team accomplished,'' Schenk said. "We were the sixth seed in the district tournament and made it all the way to the state quarterfinals. Nobody outside the program expected this from us.''
Burchill's off-speed deliveries confounded the Carroll batters.
"When we were clicking throughout the playoffs, we were hitting the ball well against fastball pitchers,'' Schenk said. "We've always had issues hitting curve balls, and today, he (Burchill) threw about 75 percent curveballs at us.''
Carroll managed just three singles, two of which did not leave the infield, against Burchill, as Saegertown improved its season record to 20-3 and earned a berth against WPIAL runner-up Eden Christian Academy in Monday's semifinal round.
"It's amazing -- he's a freshman, but he's extremely mature for his age,'' Saegertown coach Nick Leslie said of Burchill. "He came out here today and pounded the (strike) zone, and once we got the lead, he made Carroll try to hit its way on base.
"We executed a good game plan today,'' Leslie said. "All year, our plan in games has been to get quality pitching, make good defensive plays in the field, create chaos on the base paths, and hit with runners on base. We did all of that today.''
A solo homer by Manning to left field off Carroll starting pitcher Mark Mento in the second inning opened the scoring and would prove to be all the offense that Saegertown would really need in the game.
Nonetheless, the Panthers tacked on three runs with the benefit of five hits in the third inning, and added five more runs on three hits in the fourth inning, and two runs in the fifth inning, to put the mercy rule into effect.
In the third inning, Luke Young's sacrifice fly scored Everett Gardner, who had opened the inning with a single, from third base. Burchill followed by helping himself with an RBI double to the left-center field gap, scoring Levi Gardner, who had reached base on a perfectly-executed bunt.
Blake Leslie added a run-scoring single to left, scoring Burchill from third base to complete the scoring in the inning. Center fielder Wyatt Burchill's two-run double to center and Manning's bases-loaded, bases-clearing three-run double to the right-center field gap highlighted Saegertown's five-run fourth inning, before Young's two-run single in the fifth put the game on ice for Saegertown.
"I'm proud of this whole team,'' said graduating senior Luke Repko, who led off the game with a single for Carroll. "We made it this far, and not a lot of people expected us to make it out of districts.
"We played in a very tough (Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference) to prepare for this postseason, and we put in a lot of work to get here. It just sucks the way it ended for us today.''
Carroll has graduated six senior members of its baseball team, but a decent nucleus of six returning players gives the Huskies something to build around for the 2025 season.
"We return two good pitchers and a player who led the team in batting average this year,'' Schenk said. "We had a good season, nothing to complain about, and we have reason to look forward to 2025.''
SAEGERTOWN (11): L. Gardner rf 422, Young lf 222, Bl. Burchill p 321, W. Burchill cf 311, Leslie ss 201, Mosbacher ph 000, Manning 1b 413, Shaffer 3b 301, Wilkinson c 000, Jordan dh 311, E. Gardner 2b 121. Totals - 25-11-13.
BISHOP CARROLL (0): Repko cf-p-cf 201, Gillin 1b-p 200, Myers lf 200, Mento p-cf-1b 200, Sekerak 2b 201, Franchesini cr 000, Oravec lf 200, Gregg 3b 201, Becquet c 200. Totals - 16-0-3.
SCORE BY INNINGS
Saegertown 013 52X X--11-13-0
Bishop Carroll 000 00X X--0-3-1
E--Mento. 2B--B. Burchill, L. Gardner, Manning. HR--Manning. RBI--Manning 4, Young 3, W. Burchill 2, B. Burchill, Leslie. SB--Young. SF--Young. HBP--Mosbacher (by Gillin). CS--Shaffer (Becquet to Sekerak). LOB--Saegertown 7, Bishop Carroll 3.
PITCHING
Saegertown: B. Burchill p 5IP, 3H, 0R, 0ER, 0BB, 4SO. Bishop Carroll: Mento (L) 3 2/3IP, 9H, 7R, 7ER, 1BB, 0 SO; Repko 1 2/3IP, 2H, 4R, 4ER, 3BB, 1S0; Gillin 1/3IP, 0H, 0R, 0ER, 0BB, 0SO.
Records: Saegertown (20-3); Bishop Carroll (11-14).
Umpires: Bob Reitz (plate); Bill Schottenheimer (first base); Randy Miller (second base); Alex Marra (third base).
Time of game: 1:25.