Ellwood City comes from behind to defeat South Park for WPIAL 3A title
WASHINGTON — Down a run with one out in the bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth inning, Ellwood City head coach Chris Weisz pulled a page out of longtime Riverside head coach Dan Oliastro’s playbook, calling on the safety squeeze with a runner on third.
With the work that Ellwood City did in practice in those situations, the team manufactured five runs in the inning, four via the bunt en route to capturing their first WPIAL 3A high school baseball championship since 2012 with a 5-2 win over South Park on Wednesday, May 27.
“We work for an hour during practice on just bunting the baseball because when you look at these types of games, pitchers like [Cooper] Hochendoner are really good and had to put pressure on him somewhere,” Weisz said. “I’ve coached most of these kids for five years of travel ball and that is how we won most of these types of games. They knew it was coming once they got on base.”
Following five shutdown innings from South Park ace Cooper Hochendoner, Ellwood City (19-4) finally started to put pressure on the southpaw.
After Biondi reached base on a single and stole second, Ellwood City had the bases loaded after an Aaron Lake intentional walk and a Cameron Mills walk.
With left fielder Jake Biskup up, Weisz gave the senior the bunt sign and Biskup sent a perfectly placed bunt to Hochendoner, whose throw sailed past catcher Ryan Spitznagel and went to the backstop, scoring Biondi from third and pinch runner Dom Hogue from second.
“I knew that we were going to break through sooner rather than later because we started to get into the pitcher’s head,” Biskup said. “I was struggling at the plate a little bit, but this is what Ellwood City does. We make things happen.”
Following the bunt from Biskup, Nate Kennedy and Maykel Cuevas both laid down bunts of their own, each driving in a run.
While runs were hard to come by until the sixth inning for Ellwood City, the team stayed in the game thanks to another strong outing by ace Aaron Lake and the perfect fielding by the Wolverines defense.
Lake, who also went 2-for-2 with a pair of doubles, only gave up two runs in the game, each coming off South Park (15-6) solo home runs in the first and seventh innings respectively.
Outside of the two solo shots, the senior Pitt signee shook off the pair of blemishes and pitched a complete game, allowing four hits and two walks while striking out four.
“I just threw those two home runs away. The past is the past and you can’t change that,” Lake said. “I kept looking towards the present and bounced back.”
The win in the WPIAL Class 3A championship marked the third game in a row that Ellwood City has come from behind and won a game.
It came back twice from deficits against Burrell in the quarterfinals and against Riverside in the semifinals.
“With these guys, I’ve watched them play like this since little league. They do not quit,” Weisz said. “They continued to get stronger as the game progressed and there was a belief from them that they were going to win this game. We learn from our past mistakes.”
Ellwood City will now set its sights on the PIAA playoffs and will take on runner-up of the District VI championship game between Phillipsburg-Osceola and Tyrone at a site and time to be determined on Monday, June 1.
Ethan Morrison is the sports reporter for the Beaver County Times. Contact him at emorrison@usatodayco.com and follow him at EthanMorrison26 on X.
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Ellwood City defeats South Park for WPIAL 3A high school baseball title
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