Apr 19, 2021 4 min read

HOUSTON – This is why Seton LaSalle has a No. 1 ranking in Class 2A baseball.

The Rebels’ game at Chartiers Houston Monday afternoon was 99.9 percent done. In the top of the seventh inning, Seton LaSalle was down 1-0, having just given up the game’s first run in the bottom half of the sixth.

Its bats hadn’t done anything against Chartiers-Houston’s Matt Rieger all afternoon, managing just three hits through the first six innings, none leading to anything substantial.

Leading off the seventh, Brett Wagner gave the ball a ride to deep left field that might have gone out with more wind, but instead died in the glove of left fielder Chase Bitz.

The next hitter, Brian Vogel Jr., also hit a ball to deep left that, on another day, may have tied the game, but on this day, was just another fly out.

Now, the Rebels had one foot in the grave, and Char-Houston was on its way to a massive win over the top-ranked team in WPIAL Class 2A.

Within the hour, the scoreboard read; Visitors 11, Home 1.

The Rebels (5-0 in Section 4, 8-1 overall) fought back to tie it, and then scored 10 runs in the 8th inning, punctuated by Gio Lonero’s grand slam.

“It ranks up there with one of the top two or three losses I’ve been a part of in all the years that I’ve played and coached,” Chartiers-Houston head coach Andy Manion said. “That’s a tough one for those guys.”

It might not rank amongst Rebels’ head coach Mike Wagner’s most important wins, but it reminded him of one of them.

“Two years ago, we won (the WPIAL championship) against (Our Lady of the Sacred Heart). “Bottom of the seventh, two outs, two strikes, nobody on base. We won that game,” Wagner said. “So I tell our kids all the time, never say die.”

Here’s how it happened:

With Seton-LaSalle down to its last out, Sam Georgiana worked the count full and drew a walk. It didn’t seem like a big deal in the moment, but in hindsight, Manion feels it could have been the game’s biggest play.

“It had to be the walk,” he said. “Two outs, nobody on and you have two strikes on a batter, if you get strike three, that game’s over, and if he puts that ball in play somewhere, we’re probably getting him out. That’s the way the game was going at that point.”

After that, Gabe Finale singled, putting the tying run in scoring position and setting the stage for Brian Reed.

Reed belted a 1-0 pitch to left field. Chartiers-Houston left fielder Chase Bitz briefly had the ball in his glove, and the Bucs’ dugout briefly yelled in celebration.

But it didn’t stay in his glove. Pinch-runner Dom Monz scored, a sure win for C-H (5-2, 7-3) was now anybody’s ballgame.

“I don’t really know, honestly,” Rieger said. “They just started hitting the ball. I know I was running out of steam, but they hit the ball. They’re a good hitting team, so they capitalized on it.”

Rieger bared down and struck out Ethan Henke to end the inning with the score tied, and ending his afternoon with one run allowed on five hits, while walking two and striking out six.

Brett Wagner, the coach’s son, ended his outing by preventing the Bucs from scoring in the seventh. He gave up just the one run on seven hits, struck out seven and only walked one.

Brian Vogel had the go-ahead hit for the Rebels in the big eighth inning.

Both coaches were pleased with the efforts of their starting pitchers, with Manion saying that Rieger “left everything out there.”

“One heck of a game against a really, really difficult lineup that he had to face,” Manion said. “He navigated it. The original plan was to give him a couple of innings, (but) there was no way we were taking him out. He just kind of ran out of gas at the end.”

“We preach ‘don’t walk kids,'” Wagner said. “Make them earn it, and if they earn it, they earn it.”

“Games like today build character. I thought the loss the other day built character, I think today builds character, because they realized they’re never out of it.”