May 21, 2021 5 min read

McKEES ROCKS — Seton LaSalle showed California all the reasons it was made the No. 1 seed in the WPIAL Class AA baseball pairings on Friday.

The Rebels pounded out 13 hits and ace pitcher Sam Georgiana overwhelmed the Trojans batters in a dominating, 15-0, three-inning quarterfinal victory at Burkett Park.

Seton LaSalle (20-2) moves on to Monday’s semifinals against No. 4 Serra Catholic.

“Head and shoulders above anyone else we’ve played in the last couple years,” was the way California coach Lou Pasquale described the Rebels. “West Middlesex is the closest I’ve seen. They won the state championship in 2019, beat us in the quarterfinals. These guys are right up there with them. If they don’t win it there’s something wrong.

“They didn’t swing at a bad pitch all day. Anytime we tried to locate it they drove it. Just about everything they hit was on a line, on the ground hard, line drives hard, ran the bases well. Their pitcher was unbelievable.

“They’re a phenomenal team and they put it to us.”

Georgiana, an NCAA Division-I prospect, struck out six of the 10 batters he faced in throwing an abbreviated no-hitter. He allowed just two runners, Fred Conard, who was hit by a pitch with two outs in the second and then picked off by the left-hander, and Dom Martini who reached on a swinging third strike when the ball eluded catcher Mike Locastro.

Martini was the only California player to reach second base when he advanced there on a wild pitch.

The Rebels took control of the game from the outset.

Georgiana struck out the side in the top of the first and then Seton LaSalle went to work against California starting and losing pitcher Jacob Pitkel in the bottom of the inning. After Trojans third baseman Hunter Assad recorded the first out on a grounder, the next seven Seton LaSalle batters reached base.

Gio Lonero reached on an error, Brett Wagner walked and Brian Vogel Jr. and Georgiana hit back-to-back RBI singles. Evan Henke followed with a two-run hit and a single by Mike Locastro and walk by Brian Reed loaded the bases. Assad fielded Gabe Finale’s grounder and got a force out at home to catcher Dom Martini but Cam Colwell was hit by a pitch to force in the fifth run of the inning.

Londero flied out to centerfielder Jordan Kearns to finally end the outburst.

“We came focused and ready to go today,” said Seton LaSalle coach Mike Wagner. “Sam strikes out the side in the first inning, then we get five. You get your mojo going and we feed off that energy.”

The Rebels combined eight hits, including a triple by Brett Wagner and a double by Georgiana, with a walk, a hit batter and a sacrifice fly to produce seven more runs in the second off Pitkel and reliever Connor Vig.

Seton LaSalle ended the game on the 15-run, three-inning mercy rule with three runs off Caden Powell in the third. Brett Wagner, the coach’s son, hit a deep sacrifice fly to leftfielder Matt Trunzo to drive in the final run.

The Trojans suffered a scare in the second inning when a bad-hop grounder hit Assad in the mouth, forcing him to leave the game after receiving treatment.

“This infield is terrible. I’m not going to lie,” Pasquale said. “It looks good but it’s really not a good playing infield.

“Hunter’s going to be OK. We did the concussion protocol and he’s fine there. He’s just going to have a big lip for a few days.”

The ninth-seeded Trojans end the season with a 13-5 record that included an 11-game winning streak following a pair of lopsided defeats to Carmichaels.

“After those two losses to Carmichaels we all sat down and hashed out a few things and moved on,” Pasquale said. “You’re only as good as your next performance. If you miss a ground ball you’ve got to forget about it. The greatest players in the world do that.”

Coach Wagner said he had the utmost respect for the Trojans.

“They have a great program with a great coaching staff,” Wagner said. “We both won WPIALs in 2019, they won A and we won double-A. Things went our way today.”

California will lose four seniors — Payton Conte, Pitkel, Brody Conner and Trunzo — to graduation.

“We have some juniors — (Jordan) Kearns, Vig, Conard — who were freshmen starters on that championship team,” Pasquale said. “So we’ll have them coming back. We are going to lose three pitchers in Payton, Pitkel and Brody Conner. That’s going to hurt a little bit. We’re going to have to groom some guys. We’re going to lose a lot of offense with those three guys leaving, our two, three and four hitters.

“Hopefully we can reload instead of rebuild.”