O’Hara wins Tuesday without pitch thrown
Cardinal O’Hara baseball coach John Grossi was preparing to head out to La Salle High School early Tuesday afternoon when he checked his email.
The message from his athletic director informed Grossi that the game he was headed to was no longer deemed necessary. Without knowing it, O’Hara had advanced to the semifinals of the Catholic League tournament, by decree of the PIAA.
Cardinal O’Hara, the No. 6 seed in the tournament, left No. 3 La Salle’s field under a deluge of a thunderstorm that rumbled through the area Monday, holding a 4-1 lead with the game suspended in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Judging by the Catholic League rules that the tournament has long abided by, Grossi — and everyone in attendance or in charge of oversight of the game — assumed they would resume the following day at that point of postponement.
But the PIAA, via District 12 officials, stepped in to declare that since five innings had been completed, the game was official, there would be no resumption and O’Hara was the winner. The same situation arose in another quarterfinal game, with No. 5 Neumann-Goretti advancing at the expense of No. 4 Roman Catholic, which it led 2-1 in the sixth.
The crux of the problem was a miscommunication. According to Grossi, the Catholic League abides by its “red book,” updated yearly with competition rules. Those rules, which stipulate playing to seven innings in postseason games, conflict with the PIAA rules. Where the rules overlap, the PIAA governance supersedes, hence the midday emails.
Grossi empathizes with La Salle, which had the tying run at the plate when the game was suspended. An error and a fly ball to center field blown back to the infield by the rising gale put two Explorers on, and it introduced a suite of challenges with new pitchers needing to take the mound Tuesday in the resumption.
“I feel bad for La Salle’s coaches because they were basing everything on the fact that we could come back the next day,” Grossi said. “It’s tough to deal with.”
Technically, the final score is 3-1, as it reverts back to the last completed inning. That would be the fifth, erasing Cardinal O’Hara’s run scored in the top of the sixth inning.
Billy Neill gets the win in five innings. Jim White was 3-for-3 with two doubles and an RBI, and Luke Sprague and Isaiah Hammond provided two hits each.
O’Hara advances to the semifinals Wednesday at La Salle, where the Lions will play No. 7 seed St. Joseph’s Prep. The Hawks upset No. 2 Archbishop Wood, 6-4, Tuesday, in a game that was scoreless in the fourth inning when it was suspended during Monday’s storms. Because it was scoreless, it avoided the kind of confusion that La Salle (and probably Roman) are now lamenting.
No. 8 seed Bonner & Prendergast, which beat the rain with a 5-3 toppling of top seed Father Judge in eight innings Monday, will meet Neumann-Goretti at Neumann University in Aston Wednesday. First pitch for both will be at 4 p.m.
