Weather, rule knock Waynesburg out of playoffs
Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter
Trey Rohanna beats the throw to the plate and starts a rally for Waynesburg in the bottom of the fourth inning of a playoff game against Shady Side Academy Wednesday at Peterswood Park.
Trey Rohanna streaks toward third base, stretching his lead-off base hit in the Raiders' fourth inning into a triple.
Waynesburg's Riley Metheny reaches home from second base on a single by Brandon Turchek, scoring the Raiders' firsrt run in the WPIAL playoff game at Peterswood Park on May 16.
Waynesburg's Brandon Turchek beats the throw to Shady Side Academy's Ben Kosbie and steals second in the bottom of the fifth inning of the WPIAL playoff game May 16 at Peterswood Park.
Waynesburg's Luke Robinson steals second, moving into position to score Waynesburg's fifth run in the bottom of the fifth inning of the WPIAL playoff game against Shady Side Academy at Peterswood Park on May 16.
MCMURRAY – Inclement weather has posed many problems throughout the entirety of the spring sports seasons across Western Pennsylvania.
It wreaked the most havoc Wednesday night at Peterswood Park.
Trailing Shady Side Academy 6-0 after two innings, the Waynesburg High School baseball team began making a comeback. Scoring five consecutive runs – one in each of the third and fourth innings, and three more in the fifth – the momentum was all in favor of the Raiders.
That was until the skies opened and heavy rain drenched the field, ending the game in the sixth inning, stopping the Waynesburg rally and ending the Raiders’ season. After an hour rain delay, and the rain continuing, the umpires declared the field unplayable and called the game final, giving Shady Side Academy a 6-5 victory in a WPIAL Class 3A first-round playoff game.
The three-run fifth inning for Waynesburg (10-5), which finished minutes before play was stopped with no outs in the top of the six, made it a legal game, according to the WPIAL rulebook. At any point after the fifth inning, if the game can’t be finished, it’s considered final.
“It’s a bad rule,” said Waynesburg first-year coach Jamie Moore. “I think a playoff game you finish. We had all the momentum and aren’t allowed to finish? I think it’s a bad rule.”
Throughout the hour-long delay, the three umpires checked the field conditions.
“The field is cooked. It’s completely finished,” said home-plate umpire Mitchell Levenson. “There is really nothing we could do about it. We did everything we could. It’s been almost an hour and it was still pouring down rain. We would love to get it in but it’s not worth the safety of the kid. By the time (the rain) stops, there wouldn’t be anything that anyone could do to fix the field.”
Waynesburg third baseman Kyle Blasco was the main contributor in trimming the deficit to 6-4 in the fifth. His two-run double into the right-centerfield gap scored Nick Zater and Brandon Turcheck. Blasco then slid into home plate to make it 6-5, scoring after a defensive lapse by Shady Side (7-9) on a steal play with the Raiders’ Luke Robinson at first base.
“We hit the ball hard all game but finally started to find holes,” Moore said.
Shady Side scored all of its runs in the sixth inning on five hits, a walk and a hit batter. Mike George hit a two-run single to right field to score Jackson Clark and Ben Kosbie to end the scoring in the marathon inning.
“We left some balls up and (Shady Side) took advantage,” Moore said. “We had one bad inning. I thought we could have started (in the rain delay) earlier. (The umpires) told us it was raining too hard, but I’ve played in much harder rain than that. We had them right where we wanted them and the rain got us.”