Pittston’s walk-off rally dooms Marple, but Mathes wasn’t finished

SCRANTON — While his team milled about at Volpe Field like attendees that didn’t want to leave a party, Alden Mathes found a baseball and a catcher.

His No. 3 Marple Newtown jersey unbuttoned to the waist, tears in his eyes drying and giving way to a combination of defiance and denial, he ascended the bullpen mound at the University of Scranton’s ballpark and let fly — a half-dozen pitches reared back and thrown, a warmup in reverse, a final rage against the dying of his high school baseball light.

Mathes had thrown 13 pitches in relief Monday afternoon. He’d faced three Pittston Area batters, all of whom singled. And when courtesy runner Brandon Costantino slid home with the winning run for the Patriots in a 2-1 PIAA Class 5A first-round victory, all Mathes had left after the dejected walk to the dugout and hugs in the outfield were those final few grip-it-and-rip-it pitches.

“It happens. It’s a team game,” Marple starter Andrew Cantwell said. “… It all comes down to a team effort. It happened and it’s over with, and we go on with it.”

Jimmie Dillon a walk-off single!!!!! Pittston beats Marple Newtown, 2-1. What a finish!!!! pic.twitter.com/8KdBUlBR3s

— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) June 3, 2019

In a 94-minute game in which all but the first and last minute was dominated by the pitchers, one team was bound to trudge home crestfallen that an outstanding performance wouldn’t be enough. All Pittston starter Hunter Ralston had hoped in the final inning is that it wasn’t him.

The big righty was brilliant. He allowed just two baserunners in his last six innings on the mound, retiring the last 11 batters he faced. He needed a mere 66 pitches to mow down the defending PIAA champs and District 1’s third-place team over seven innings. Yet the University of Scranton signee returned to the dugout he’ll soon call home for the bottom of the seventh, due up third, staring at the hardest of hard-luck losses for the District 2 champs. Unless …

“I was standing in the corner just holding my head and hoping we got it done,” Ralston said, “which I knew we would.”

Cantwell, meanwhile, glided nearly as effortlessly into the seventh. His pitch count crept into the 90s behind three walks and five strikeouts, but the lefty was two outs from a win when he got Cole Cherkas to pop up harmlessly to left to lead off.

“(Catcher Erik) Molinaro came up to me before the game and said, ‘we have to get our changeup down. It’s got to be a difference-maker in the game,’” Cantwell said. “So I stuck with the changeup. They didn’t really hit my changeup at all, and when I got it over the plate, it was useful for me.”

Designated hitter Riley Brody followed with a solid single back up the box to end Cantwell’s day, the first hard-hit ball he’d given up. So confident in his relief was Cantwell that, while Mathes took his warmup tosses on the hill, Cantwell had enough energy left to share a flying chest bump with shortstop Kevin Merrone on Cantwell’s way to center.

The joy didn’t last, though. Ralston greeted Mathes by lacing a single off Merrone’s glove as the shortstop retreated on a hard-hit liner.

“We’ve been preparing all week for a hard-throwing lefty,” Ralston said. “Granted, they had two of them. They were very good pitchers. They did their jobs. But coming in there, you’ve got to stay relaxed because if you go in there all nervous, you’re going to be in your own head and not play the game the way you’re supposed to play it.”

Replaced by Costantino, Ralston watched as eight-hitter Derek Cunius, who had twice grounded out to Cantwell, fouled off five pitches and lofted Mathes’ 10th offering on a line to right that sunk inches shy of the glove of a sliding Ben Davis for a single to load the bases.

Then came Dillon, the ninth man in the order, who punched a 1-0 pitch the opposite way on the ground just past the dive of a drawn-in Merrone. Brody’s pinch-runner PJ Pisano scored, and Constantino slid home as Molinaro rose to grab Jack Mulgrew’s toss from left.

“Derek, he did a great job of fighting off pitches, keeping the at-bat alive and getting on base,” Dillon said. “I was just trying to stay inside the ball, just like coach told us, and I found a hole. They did a great job running the bases.”

The runs were the first pushed across since the game was three batters old. Mathes led off the game by ringing a triple to the right-center gap. After Cantwell reached on a fielders’ choice, Merrone lofted a sacrifice fly to right to make it 1-0. And for the next six innings, that looked like enough for Cantwell.

“I always try to keep myself cool, calm and collected, go through every batter one at a time,” Cantwell said. “So I just focused on one batter at a time and got focused.”

Owen Mathes had Marple’s next hit, a one-out single in the fourth that put two runners on, but a fly out and a strikeout got Ralston out of dodge. He wouldn’t be troubled again, though he benefited from a diving catch by Dillon in right (one of six flawless chances he handled among 10 total fly-ball outs) in the sixth and a superb diving play into the hole by shortstop Josh Baiera in the seventh to rob Molinaro.

That last play got the Patriots going in the bottom of the seventh, and they needed any boost they could get against Cantwell. The only extra-base hit he allowed was to Brody in the second, a three-hopper that caromed off first for a double. He navigated what could’ve been trouble in the sixth against 2-3-4 in the Pittstown order. But a groundout, a liner that Alden Mathes tracked down in center and a strikeout — his third punchout of the day against Pittston clean-up man Johnny DeLucca — required just seven pitches. Cantwell chewed up the top five in the Pittston order, getting them to go 0-for-12.

But six hits from the last four in the Patriots’ order made the difference, bringing a devastating end to the careers of Alden Mathes and his fellow states-winning classmates. Even if for juniors like Cantwell, who’ve known nothing but states baseball for the Tigers the last four years, it adds the next log to the fire.

“People are always saying when we lose player, ‘oh we’re not going to be that good,’” Cantwell said. “But we use that as fuel. We get back at it and we’re a good program right now. We’re staying on top, that’s what we try to do.”