Matteo Weber limited Pine-Richland to three hits over 6 1/3 innings Tuesday, helping Montour upset the top-seeded Rams, 3-2, in a WPIAL Class 5A quarterfinal baseball game played at North Hills High School.
Weber and Pine-Richland’s Logan Plummer were locked in a pitchers’ duel into the seventh inning before Montour reliever Gavin Foley was called upon to end the Rams’ last-gasp threat.
Trailing 3-0, Pine-Richland scored once on Gabe Stulak’s RBI single and had the bases loaded with one out. Foley came on to strike out the first hitter he faced, then walked the next batter to force in a run, cutting Montour’s lead to 3-2 with the bases still loaded.
But Foley struck out Kyler Bell for the final out, preserving the Spartans’ win and sending them on to Thursday’s semifinals to face Upper St. Clair. The 12th-seeded Panthers upset No. 4 Moon, 10-9. The time and location of Thursday’s semifinal game will be announced later.
Montour, now 17-5 and headed for the semifinals for the first time as a Class 5A team, did all of its damage in the third inning. The Spartans used a pair of walks and Michael Ivanoff’s base hit to go in front 1-0, then added a second run on Zander Stern’s steal of home. A third run scored on an error.
Montour finished with just two hits in the game, one by Weber and the other by Ivanoff. Weber was outstanding on the mound, yielding just three hits and walking two while striking out 10.
Upper St. Clair 10, Moon Area 9
Brooks York’s RBI single in the top of the seventh inning proved to be the difference as the 12th-seeded Panthers upset the No. 4 seed Tigers in the quarterfinals of the Class 5A tournament at Ross Memorial Park on the campus of Washington & Jefferson College.
Wilson drove home Nico D’Orazio with two outs in the top of the inning and the Panthers ended the game in the bottom of the frame with an unassisted double play when Moon’s hitter popped out to the first baseman standing right at the bag and the Tigers’ runner, who took off for second on an attempted steal, and was doubled off first.
It was Upper St. Clair’s first win in three tries over the Tigers this season. The victory boosts the Panthers into Thursday’s semifinal matchup with Montour.
Upper St. Clair built leads of 7-3 and 9-6, but Moon kept battling back.
The Tigers, who had just four hits to Upper St. Clair’s 11, plated three runs in the fourth inning to narrow the 7-3 deficit to 7-6. One of the Tigers runs scored on a bases-loaded walk and the other two runs scored on passed balls.
Upper St. Clair added to its lead with two runs in the fifth to make it 9-6, but in the sixth inning, Moon again rallied, scoring one run on an error, another on Will Swisher’s sacrifice fly and a third on Owen Amey’s RBI double. That tied the score at 9-9, setting the stage for York’s seventh-inning heroics.
Nick Machusko and Amey each had two hits for Moon, which ended its season 16-5. Machusko belted a two-run homer in the first inning for the Tigers.
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