Tuesday at practice, Serra Catholic coach Brian Dzurenda provided some not-so-easy listening for his team. Over the baseball field’s speaker system, Serra’s longtime coach played the radio broadcast of the Eagles’ April 30 loss to Greensburg Central Catholic, forcing them to relive each error and miscue of that 6-5 loss to their bitter rival.
“Just so they’d remember and have a taste of that in their mouth,” Dzurenda said. “They were [ticked].”
The motivational ploy worked well enough for Serra to avoid a third loss this season to the defending champion Centurions and capture the school’s third WPIAL baseball title with a 6-3 win in the Class A championship Wednesday at Consol Energy Park.
Senior pitcher Ben Davis — who was only supposed to work two innings — relieved starter Ben Visnesky entering the third and finished the rest of the way for the Eagles, allowing four hits over the final five innings. Serra (22-2) plated five runs in a fourth inning highlighted by Jason Cerniglia’s two-run triple, finishing with seven hits total by seven players.
“I knew we had it all the way,” Davis said. “We always have big innings, we always have a great group of guys who can hit the ball, and I just knew we were going to come through.”
The second-seeded Eagles strung together four consecutive hits in the fourth off Centurions starter Neal McDermott, who had a no-hitter and had faced the minimum through three. But then it unraveled as Jake Eged drew a leadoff walk and was driven in two batters later by Visnesky.
After another base hit by Ryan Anselmino, Visnesky came home on a third consecutive single, this one by Zachary Bowen to make it 2-1. That set the stage for Cerniglia’s triple to right to score Anselmino and Bowen and break it open.
“I want to give the credit to them, they hit outside pitches to the opposite field like a good team does,” said first-year Centurions coach Nick LoNigro.
The top-seeded Centurions (15-4) struck first in the third inning with an inside-the-park home run by star shortstop Tommy Pellis, who belted a Davis pitch to center field just out of the reach of a diving Eged to make it 1-0.
It was serendipitous, then, that it was Eged, a senior, who got on base to spark that crucial fourth inning that helped the Eagles soar to glory.
“I couldn’t be more happy for my team,” he said. “This was four years of hard work for me and I’m just going to say we aren’t done yet.”
Brian Batko: bbatko@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrianBatko.
First Published: June 1, 2016, 11:27 p.m.
