Avonworth swept the two-game season series from South Park this year, but the Eagles came up big in the biggest matchup of the year between the WPIAL powers Thursday.
The fifth-seeded Eagles rallied from an early deficit behind all three phases, including the pitching of ace Cooper Hochendoner, to earn a 5-2 victory in the Class 3A semifinals at Gateway, earning a spot in next week’s championship game at EQT Park, the home of the Washington Wild Things.
South Park will play for a title after falling one game short of the championship game last year.
“I couldn’t be prouder of these guys,” Eagles coach Corey Fischer said. “Our first game against Avonworth, they came back and walked it off. The next day, we had a tough one. I think the guys were hungry to see them again. When you come out for a playoff game, and the No. 1 seed puts up two in the first inning, you are already digging from a deficit. But these guys didn’t flinch. They persevered knowing that there was a lot of game left.”
South Park now will face the No. 3 Ellwood City with the hopes of winning its first title since 2022 and its third overall. The Wolverines defeated defending champ Riverside, the seventh seed, 6-5 in the other semifinal.
“It was a setback last year (a 2-1 semifinal loss) against Riverside that kind of broke our hearts because we thought we were good enough last year,” Fischer said. “But the guys came back strong, and we fought through a tough side of the bracket with Keystone Oaks, Freeport and Avonworth. We earned our way to get there, and now we have to play the best baseball of our entire lives to walk away with the gold medal.”
Top-seeded Avonworth fell to 17-6, but its season is not done. The Antelopes clinched a spot in the state playoffs with Tuesday’s 7-6 walk-off win over Charleroi and will play for third place against Riverside next Tuesday or Wednesday at Washington & Jefferson’s Ross Memorial Park.
“I still feel we have a state-championship caliber team,” Avonworth coach Jeff Bywalski said. “We all still believe in that, and I believe in them. I will go to battle against anyone with them. We’re going to come back and show that. That was the message. Yeah, it stings now, but we still have a lot of baseball in front of us, and we’re going to go after it as hard as we can.
“They still can make history. A state championship in baseball hasn’t been done yet, and they can do that. We just have to clean some things up, and I know these guys will work hard to do that.”
Avonworth struck for two runs in the first off Hochendoner. The first five batters reached on singles with Jack Dolan and Carson Franc delivering run-scoring hits.
Hochendoner then settled down to retire 14 of the next 15 batters he faced before giving up back-to-back singles with one out in the sixth. But he and the defense behind him kept the Antelopes off the board.
Hochendoner gave up a leadoff single to Avonworth right fielder Patrick Bykowski before again retiring three in a row to finish the game. He gave props to his second baseman, freshman Johnny Parris, for a ranging and leaping snag of a line drive off the bat of Antelope catcher Will Fowler for the second out of the seventh.
Hochendoner gave up nine hits, but he walked none and struck out four. He threw 22 pitches in the first inning but finished with 79, not going higher than 14 pitches in any one inning the rest of the way.
“Early on in the season, my first outing was rough,” Hochendoner said. “I learned from that game in Florida how to fight through adversity. After giving up those two runs in the first, I thought back to Florida. I knew I had to keep fighting. I had to throw strikes. My teammates helped me stay level the entire game. As the innings went on, I just got more comfortable.”
South Park took the lead for good in the top of the third.
Franc, Avonworth’s starter, was one strike away from a clean inning.
After striking out the first two batters, Eagles center fielder Talan Glowa worked a 3-2 count and then drew a walk to keep the South Park inning alive.
Glowa stole second, went to third on an error and scored on a double from Hochendoner.
Ryan Spitznagel walked and Andrew Mittleider singled to load the bases.
Parris kept it going with a walk on a 3-2 count to bring home Hochendoner to tie the game.
Jacob Raimondi then walked on a 3-2 count to plate Spitznagel for a 3-2 Eagles lead.
Seven South Park batters came to the plate with two outs, and Franc delivered 42 pitches in the inning.
“Working counts was one of the biggest things in that inning,” Fischer said. “We made (Franc) work. That was the game plan against a No. 1 pitcher like Franc is. We found ways to get on base. We did a nice job of putting the pressure on him. We wanted to take him out of his groove, and we did a nice job with that.”
In addition to his RBI double in the third, Hochendoner further helped himself with a run-scoring sacrifice fly in the fourth and an RBI single in the sixth, which extended the Eagles’ lead to three.
Franc pitched five full innings and came out having thrown 98 pitches. He gave up just three hits but was hurt by six total walks. He struck out five.
“The first two innings Carson was there, and then he lost control a little bit,” Bywalski said. “You can’t walk guys against good teams, especially one like South Park. Give credit to South Park, but we know we have to play a cleaner game than what we did today.”
Jackson Krul came on to pitch the final two innings for the Antelopes and struck out three. South Park scored once in the sixth but left three runners in scoring position over the final two innings.