Live WPIAL baseball blog -- North Dakota transfer stellar on mound for Pine-Richland; Serra pitcher gets no-hitter
By Mike White | Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Live blog from the Pine-Richland vs. Upper St. Clair WPIAL Class AAAA baseball semifinal, with some reports from other games.
9:06 p.m. - North Allegheny leading Peters Township, 3-1, in the bottom of the fifth. NA starter Tanner Wilt is impressive. Has allowed only three hits so far.
FINAL SCORE: BEAVER FALLS 5, CENTER 3 - That from the guys at MSA
7:58 p.m. - Peters Township leads North Allegheny, 1-0, after one inning. .... From Class A semifinals, Serra's Alain Girman threw a no-hitter in 10-0 defeat of Vincentian. Game lasted only five innings.
7:24 p.m. - Blowout. 10-run rule invoked. FINAL SCORE: PINE-RICHLAND 11, UPPER ST. CLAIR 0 -
Pine-Richland 11 runs on 13 hits and one error. Upper St. Clair 0 runs on 2 hits and two errors.
Interesting story for Pine-Richland. Pitcher Stephen Laylock tosses two-hitter. This is his first year at Pine-Richland. Came from North Dakota. Yes, North Dakota. Father works for Marathon Oil and moved to Pittsburgh area. Laylock is now 6-0 and has won both playoff games. He'll pitch the championship game next week.
But maybe we shouldn't be surprised at what he did today. He pitched a no-hitter in the North Dakota state championship game a year ago.
6:45 p.m. - Two more runs for Pine-Richland. It's now 9-0. Matt Berezo singled, stole second, stole third and came home on the catcher's throwing error. One more run and P-R has enough for the 10-run rule.
6:42 p.m. - I've seen Pine-Richland shortstop Matt Berezo play before and been impressed. But I'm real impressed today. He's a Duke recruit and has an extremely strong arm. He hit over .500 in the regular season.
6:41 p.m. - Still 7-0 Pine-Richland top of the seventh.
6:40 p.m. - Doesn't Ross Memorial Park is Washington & Jefferson's home. The surface reminds me of Three Rivers Stadium. Besides dirt areas around the bases, home plate and the mound, the rest is synthetic turf. You know, the plastic grass with rubber pellets underneath. Just like many football stadiums. Below shows Upper St. Clair on the field.
6:13 p.m. - I'm sitting in press box next to Joe Emanuele, Central Catholic's coach a long time ago. He also happened to coach Dan Marino in baseball at Central. Just call Joe "Yogi." He's a scout for the Atlanta Braves.
6:11 p.m. - Pine-Richland has taken the suspense out of this game. Dead atmosphere here now because P-R is dominating. After giving up a leadoff double and then a walk, Pine-Richland's Steve Laylock has retired nine in a row, with six strikeouts. He's been impressive.
6:09 p.m. - Just sitting here daydreaming, thinking of last time Upper St. Clair won a WPIAl title. There were two future major leaguers in the game. It was 1992 and Upper St. Clair beat Butler. Sean Casey was playing first base for USC. Matt Clement played third base for Butler.
6:08 p.m. - Two more for Pine-Richland on Steve Laylock's single and it's now 7-0. This could be a 10-run rule game.
6:05 p.m. - USC starter Erik Woistman threw a lot of off-speed stuff and Pine-Richland hit him. Now they're hitting heat from reliever Stephen Korlczyk.
FINAL SCORE: SERRA 10, VINCENTIAN 0
Serra moves on to the championship game for the second year in a row.
Third inning California leads Neshannock, 2-0.
6:00 p.m. - Pine just scored again and leads 5-0. Russell Clark RBI single. In the first, Brad Lalli and Ryan Hanahan had run-scoring singles and Matt Berezo a two-run single.
5:50 p.m. - Top of the third inning here at Washington & Jefferson's Ross Memorial Park and Pine-Richland is looking good, leading, 4-0. Pine-Richland scored four runs in the top of the second inning against Upper St. Clair starter Erik Woistman. After a one-out walk, Upper St. Clair just lifted Woistman in favor of Stephen Krolczyk.
Pine-Richland had four runs on five hits in the second. Woistman also walked one.
Pine-Richland has been one of the hotter teams in the Class AAAA - and is hot again today.