Without a senior in the starting lineup and only one on the roster, the Bishop Canevin baseball team came into the season with modest goals. Bishop Canevin’s thought was the future would be brightest in a year or two.
But these Crusaders are an impatient bunch. They figured: Why wait? The future is now.
Youth was served at the WPIAL Class 1A title game Wednesday and then the WPIAL served a championship trophy to Bishop Canevin after the Crusaders defeated California 8-5 on a sunny, warm afternoon at Wild Things Park in Washington, Pa.
Bishop Canevin (15-3), the No. 6 seed for the playoffs, beat No. 4 seed California (14-8) to win their third WPIAL title and first in 23 years. The first for Bishop Canevin came exactly 30 years ago this week. This Bishop Canevin team started four sophomores and six juniors in the title game.
“We were in the same section with Eden Christian and Sewickley Academy, and our goal was just to try and come in second place in the section because we were young,” Bishop Canevin coach Bill Varley said. “I didn’t tell that to the boys, but that was kind of my thinking. That’s what happened — we finished second. Then, in the playoffs, [No. 1 seed] Union lost and [No. 2 seed] Eden Christian lost. That opened a little avenue for us, and things happened to work out.”
California made things interesting in seventh with two runs and tying run at plate. But Bishop Canevin gets a grounder to end it and wins WPIAL Class 1A with 8-5 win pic.twitter.com/uuNRNteERT
— Mike White (@mwhiteburgh) May 31, 2023
A few of those sophomores were keys to winning the championship. Tyler Maddix, a sophomore right-handed pitcher, worked the first six innings, gave up four hits and struck out eight in lifting his record to 8-1. Maddix now has 118 strikeouts in 50⅓ innings.
“We definitely did not expect this championship,” said Maddix, who also went 2 for 4 at the plate. “We went into the season thinking we’d win a playoff game and build some momentum for next year. This is way ahead of schedule for us. Nobody was really expecting it this year, but it’s awesome that it happened.”
Sophomore Kole Olszewski was 3 for 5 against California and came on to pitch the seventh inning to pick up the save. Sophomore Kellen Andruscik had one hit and two RBIs. Juniors Mason Glover, Quentin White and Aiden Didion had two hits apiece.
Bishop Canevin used the ultimate “small ball” attack against California. The Crusaders had 13 hits off California pitchers Addison Panepinto and Caden Monticelli, but all 13 were singles. Then again, this wasn’t uncommon for Bishop Canevin.
“We have one home run all year,” Varley said. “We put the ball in play [against California] and we pitched. Tyler Maddix is going to give you six or seven innings usually and he probably won’t give up more than a couple runs. So we just concentrate on lumping hits together.”
But Bishop Canevin also was helped by five California errors. Three of Bishop Canevin’s runs were unearned.
The errors started in the first inning for California. The Trojans made two errors and Glover followed with an RBI single. Bishop Canevin then took a 2-0 lead on a passed ball.
Maddix had some control problems in the first inning and California got one run back on Kris Weston’s sacrifice fly. But Maddix retired 10 in a row at one point and Bishop Canevin broke open the game with two runs in the fourth and three in the fifth. California committed two more errors in the fourth. Bishop Canevin scored three runs on five hits in the fifth, sending nine batters to the plate. White, Andruscik and Lucas Golembiewski all had RBI singles in the inning.
California got single runs in the fifth and sixth innings off Maddix before he gave way to Olszewski in the seventh. California made things interesting by scoring two runs and having runners on second and third with two outs. But Olszewski got a strikeout to end the game.
Mike White: mwhite@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mwhiteburgh.
First Published: May 31, 2023, 9:12 p.m.
