May 13, 2015 4 min read

WEXFORD – The baseball season for Washington High School went up in a puff of smoke.

More accurately, it was a puff of chalk.

That’s what showed the baseball hit by Riverside’s Trevor Moser had stayed fair, allowing teammate Ricky Wass to score the winning run with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning as the Panthers edged Washington, 3-2, Wednesday in a WPIAL Class AA first round playoff game at North Allegheny High School.

Washington, which finishes its season at 9-6, gave the fourth-seeded Panthers (15-3), who advance to the quarterfinals to play Quaker Valley, all they could handle.

With the score tied at 2-2 after Washington scored in the top of the sixth and seventh innings, Wass led off the bottom of the seventh by dropping a bloop single into center field, just the third hit for the Panthers off Prexies sophomore pitcher Connor Bedillion.

After a failed attempt to sacrifice Wass to second base resulted in the first out of the inning, Riverside leadoff hitter Dylan Speicher drew a walk.

Washington head coach Rocky Plassio then brought in senior Jonathan Spina to pitch, going for a lefty-against-lefty matchup. Spina recorded the second out on a popout to shortstop before Moser, a righty, pulled an outside pitch over the third-base bag. The hooking line drive caught just enough of the line to throw up a puff of chalk, and Wass easily scored to end the game.

“It didn’t even hit the middle (of the line),” said veteran Riverside head coach Dan Oliastro. “It hit the outside edge. Thank God they had some chalk down there. You could see it come up. I was just hoping the umpire saw it.”

He did and the Panthers began their celebration at home plate while the Prexies began packing up and thinking about next season.

“What are you going to do?” Plassio asked. “We did what we thought we needed to do to survive that inning and try to play another inning. It just didn’t happen.”

Prior to the seventh inning, Bedillion’s only mistake was leaving a pitch over the middle of the plate that Colby Wolf hammered over the left-field fence for a two-run homer that gave Riverside a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning.

While Bedillion was shutting down Riverside’s offense, his counterpart, Vinnie Loccisano was equally as baffling to Washington’s hitters.

Loccisano, a junior left-hander, allowed at least one baserunner in each of the first five innings, but didn’t allow a runner to reach third base until the sixth inning.

That was when catcher Steven Shallcross drove an RBI single into right field to score Jordan Mooney, who had reached earlier in the inning on a fielder’s choice.

But with runners on first and second, Bedillion flew out to right to end the threat.

Oliastro went to hard-throwing righty Mike Boswell in the top of the seventh. After a strikeout to start the inning, Boswell walked Chris Gouin and Jordan West before Spina lined a game-tying single into right. West and Spina advanced on the throw to home plate and Oliastro called for an intentional walk of Mooney to load the bases.

With the infield in, Boswell got Kurt Adkins, who had two of Washington’s eight hits, to hit a ball sharply to Speicher at shortstop. Speicher threw home to record the second out and Connor Anderson grounded out to third to end the inning.

“I thought we were really going to break through and score a couple of more runs in the seventh,” Plassio said. “It would have been nice to go into the bottom half with the lead instead of tied. They made plays. Their balls found holes and ours didn’t. We had some hard-hit balls that were just right at them. That happens in baseball.”

That set up Riverside to get the win in the bottom of the inning.

“They played us tough. I told my kids they would play us tough and they did,” Oliastro said. “They gave us everything we could handle. They played well enough to win. My team hits better than what you saw today.

“(Bedillion) pitched a good game. Their kid was crafty. He pitched with a lot of heart. They made the plays behind him.”

Right until the bitter end.

“You could tell from the sound of the bat that it was hit off the end of the bat,” Plassio said. “That’s baseball.”