When it comes to WPIAL baseball championships, Bishop Canevin is well-acquainted.
The Crusaders have won four WPIAL baseball titles in all, including the last two in a row.
Now the Crusaders are looking to become only the third team in WPIAL history to capture three straight crowns, and they’ll take the first step on that road when they battle Rochester at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 13, at Burkett Park in Robinson.
Bishop Canevin enters the tournament as the No. 4 seed in the Class 1A bracket while Rochester, which finished in fourth place in Section 2 with a 7-7 record and is 9-7 overall, is seeded last in the 13-team field. But Crusaders’ first-year coach Craig Sonson knows it would be a huge mistake to look past the Rams.
“When you play baseball teams from Beaver County, you know those kids are always gritty and they’re not going to give up,” said Sonson, who was an assistant on a Bishop Canevin team that played Rochester in the WPIAL playoffs two years ago.
“They give 100% effort no matter when you play them. I’m not looking at their overall record – we know they’ll be a good ballclub.”
It would also be a mistake to judge the Crusaders based on their overall 10-6 record. They tied for first in Section 3 with Serra Catholic – the tournament’s top seed – and Eden Christian, the No. 2 seed, at 8-2. All three teams split with one another; Bishop Canevin defeated Serra Catholic 9-7 and lost 4-1, and the Crusaders beat Eden Christian 7-4 and lost 8-2.
Sonson said he purposefully put together a rugged non-section portion of the schedule to prepare his team for the rigors of postseason play. Bishop Canevin played only one Class A team out of section, and that team – DuBois Central Catholic – was ranked third in the state when the two teams met.
That 2-4 mark in non-section play might have hurt the Crusaders when it came time to seed the teams for the tournament, but Sonson said he has no regrets about the schedule.
“Our theory was, we need to get them ready to prepare for a playoff run,” he said. “We had kids on the teams that made playoff runs the last couple years who didn’t see a lot of playing time because they were underclassmen. And we have four or five sophomores starting, along with a freshman catcher.
“They needed to get battle tested in a hurry and the only way I knew how to do that was to throw them in against quality competition.”
In hindsight, Sonson said that approach worked. He said his young and somewhat inexperienced team played every game with the postseason in mind, working to manufacture runs in specific situations that might come up in more important games down the line.
‘We were playing situations as if they were playoff situations,” he said. “Obviously we were concerned about the outcome, but not super concerned if we executed the plan and did the things we needed to do.
“It didn’t always work out correctly every time. But we looked at them as learning situations, and we went back and practiced on things that didn’t work out. And as we went through the season, that paid dividends.”
For example, Sonson said, the Crusaders executed a couple of key bunts and a hit-and-run situation in the second meeting with Serra Catholic – the 9-7 win that gave the team a share of the section title.
Sonson said he didn’t make any wholesale changes when he took over as head coach after helping out with the team the previous five seasons. He said the team’s three captains – Kellen Andruscik, Tyler Maddix and Kole Olszewski – helped with the transition.
“When you have leaders not only on the team but in school, it makes it easy for a coach to get his message across,” Sonson said. “They wanted coached and they wanted coached hard. They have that strong work ethic and they know what it takes to succeed.”
As a whole, Sonson said his team embraced his philosophy.
“Kids are kids and they like to have fun and carry on,” he said. “Sometimes I just needed to say, ‘Hey guys.’ I didn’t have to raise my voice much at all. And they responded.”
Sonson said his players definitely had a team-first mentality, from the seniors all the way down to his freshman catcher Nate Astor.
“He came in as a middle infielder, but he had some experience (catching) in Pony League, so it wasn’t totally foreign to him,” Sonson said. “He said, ‘I want to win a championship – put me where you need me.’”
Astor has done a solid job defensively, particularly considering he’s a first-year varsity player, and has held his own catching senior pitchers Maddix and Olszewski.
“Kole and Tyler throw extremely hard and their stuff moves,” Sonson said. “That’s not easy to do for a freshman. I was a freshman catcher and I was scared to death catching guys who were four or five years older. Kudos to him – he’s done a great job behind the plate.”
Astor also has proven to be one of the team’s top offensive threats with a batting average close to .500 as the No.2 hitter in the lineup most games. With an on-base percentage of nearly .800, he’s helped set the table for the Maddix brothers, Tyler and Jackson, coming up behind him.
“That’s why we’re averaging almost 10 runs a game,” Sonson said.
Jackson Maddix is on a particularly hot streak at the plate, Sonson said.
“He’s been solid and steady and he’s a great outfielder,” Sonson said. “He’s very disciplined at the plate – he’s hitting the ball hard every time up.”
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