Delay doesn’t stop Conte’s heroics for Cal

LATROBE – When California High School’s sophomore shortstop Payton Conte was at-bat in the bottom of the sixth inning Monday, it was in the pivotal point of the Trojans’ WPIAL Class A quarterfinal baseball playoff game against Eden Christian.
The bases were loaded and Eden Christian was trying to protect a 6-5 lead with two outs.
Then, play was stopped for about 90 seconds so that the temporary fence in right field at Latrobe High School could be fixed. Players awaiting the day’s second game had leaned on the fence and a section became unhinged.
It was a delay that could easily bother a young hitter, but not Conte.
“He’s pretty calm,” California coach Lou Pasquale pointed out.
When play resumed, Conte smacked the next pitch into left centerfield to score two runs and give California the lead. The Trojans would tack on two more runs in the inning and go on to a 9-6 come-from-behind victory.
The win sends top-seeded California (16-1) to the semifinals Friday.
“Payton’s rock solid,” Pasquale said. “He never gets rattled. He from a good baseball family.”
Conte’s father, Mike, is the head coach at California University and the younger Conte handled the delay like a seasoned veteran.
Conte’s hit drove in Colton Lusk and Fred Conard, giving California a 7-6 lead. The Trojans added on when an error on a ball hit by Brody Conner scored Jacob Swartz and Conte made it 9-6 when he scored on a line-drive single up the middle by Jacob Pitkel.
Conte’s hit gave California it’s first lead of the game.
Eden Christian (11-9), the fourth-place team out of Section 1, had leads of 3-1 in the third and 6-3 in the fifth as California often looked like a team that was playing its first game in more than a week. As the top seed, the Trojans were given a bye in last week’s opening round.
“I have a saying about having that week off,” Pasquale said. “If you win, then it was good. If you lose, then you were rusty.”
The Trojans were a little of both. It took five innings to shake off the rust and pesky Eden Christian. Markus Williams, the Eden Christian starting pitcher, threw well until the sixth, when he walked Lusk, the No. 8 hitter in the Trojans’ lineup, and then hit Conard with a 2-2 pitch.
Williams was able to get a flyout for the second out of the sixth but had to come out of the game after that point because of the pitch-count limit.
“Putting the (Nos.) 8 and 9 hitters on base hurt us,” Eden Christian coach Steve Good said. “When I went out of the mound to change pitchers, Markus said, ‘I’m sorry for putting those two guys on base’ before I could even tell him that he did a good job.
“But that has been our Achilles heel all season. It seems like whenever we put a guy on base, he comes around and scores.”
Nate Zemany was the winning pitcher in relief of starter Jacob Swartz. Zemany retired all six batters he faced, two on strikeouts.
Conte finished the game with two hits, including a double, and three RBI. Pitkel drove in two runs, as did Jordan Kearns, who was 2-for-3 with a run-scoring triple.
“We hung in there,” Pasquale said. “I saw There was a time early in the game when we were behind and I saw some heads go down. They took my words to heart. I said, ‘Don’t give up. It’s a seven-inning game. We have a lot of time.'”