La Salle rallies around McVeigh’s effort to repeat as PCL champions

CHESTER >> It was a moment Colin McVeigh had envisioned for a year.

It was the reason the La Salle junior pitcher and his teammates got up at 6 a.m. all fall, trudged out in the cold to do workouts all winter and spent the spring putting all the pieces in place. McVeigh didn’t initially expect to start the PCL championship Saturday, but when Wednesday’s semifinal went extra innings, the right-hander prepared himself.

La Salle repeated as champion of the Catholic League, defeating Cardinal O’Hara 4-1 at Widener in a true team effort that started with McVeigh’s gutsy outing on the mound.

“Wednesday, in the fifth inning, I told myself to be ready,” McVeigh said. “I didn’t expect Gavin to go eight and I wasn’t expecting to start but after Wednesday, I knew I had the ball and I had to get my mindset right.”

McVeigh actually started Wednesday’s semifinal against Father Judge and pitched well, but he was pulled after four innings in a 2-0 deficit. When ace Gavin Moretski ended up having to throw eight innings of relief, that’s when McVeigh knew he was up for the final.

Saturday, the junior went five innings, giving up just four hits and not a single run. The difference in his eyes was getting ahead of hitters, something his teammates saw as an abundance of confidence coming from the junior on the hill.

“I was throwing more first pitch strikes,” McVeigh said. “In the Judge game, I got down a lot and they were sitting on my fastball. Today, I got ahead more and was able to work my slider and my changeup.”

La Salle’s defense wasn’t perfect, a couple gaffs helped lead to a few of the jams McVeigh had to work through, but it was good enough to compensate for the right-hander and his six strikeouts. Junior catcher Justin Igoe, who belted a pair of doubles offensively, had a good rapport with McVeigh throughout the day.

Igoe threw out a base stealer to end the first inning and McVeigh cited his catcher’s blocking behind the dish as a huge help. The catcher felt McVeigh’s intensity really got the entire team going.

“He’s a great competitor, every time he’s out there, he’s going to give his all and we know he has the stuff to shut down teams, which he showed today,” Igoe said. “He brings that fire, we all see it. I knew his confidence was there and his pitches were working so I knew he’d get it done.”

Offensively, there wasn’t a real hero for the Explorers, but a lot of guys chipping in different ways. La Salle took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second thanks to a handful of unselfish at-bats and some timely execution.

Igoe led off with a double and was replaced by courtesy runner Tom Meyer. Jack Heineman worked a great at-bat for a one out walk to advance Meyer, who swiped third on a wild pitch. Sophomore Jake Whitlinger, who had the season-saving single on Wednesday, dropped a perfect safety squeeze bunt that sent Meyer zipping in ahead of a tag at home.

Charlie Yanoshik beat out a trademark infield hit to load the bags and senior Andrew Miles cashed in with a sac fly out of the nine spot. Miles had been hitting leadoff the last two games, but accepted his new spot in the order and looked at it as a chance to be a producer.

“I saw it as a second leadoff spot, good things happen when you flip that lineup around,” Miles said. “I trust my guys. I know coach (Kyle Werman) puts us in the right spot to succeed and personally, I like hitting at the bottom better.

“It’s been something that’s been pushed all year – unity, playing together, executing and making things happen together.”

Miles did flip the lineup over in the fifth when he was hit by a pitch to start the frame and later scored on an RBI single by Owen Lawn that tacked on a critical insurance run.

While the Explorers repeated as PCL champions and were the top seed in the regular season, they did so as a much different team. Last year’s lineup was stacked with Division I players, many of them in the stands Saturday wearing their former Explorer jerseys, and power hitters while this year’s crew has used a more team-based approach.

There are still a lot of talented players on this La Salle roster, it’s just that for many of them, it’s their first chance to really show what they can do.

“Coming into the season, there were doubts certainly just because of all the guys we graduated and all the names,” Miles, who had a superb defensive play at third in the second inning, said. “The fact it was a bunch of quote-unquote no-names, I love it. I love these guys.”

“There was only one goal for us today and it was the hubcap,” senior outfielder/pitcher David Kratz said. “No matter who was at the plate, in the field or on the mound, we all wanted that common goal and it was why we were able to succeed.”

It wasn’t all easy for McVeigh. The junior found himself in a serious jam in the top of the fourth inning facing the bases loaded after a couple miscues put three Lions on them. A miscommunication on a popup put leadoff man Joe Kelly on second base following a ball that landed about four feet in front of the plate.

McVeigh got the next two outs, but an infield error and a hit batter loaded the bases and put his confidence to the test. A visit from the team’s pitching coach came with a warning that if the next batter got on base, he was done for the day.

“I had a couple shaky batters but I felt locked in the whole time, there was never a spot where I felt like I was losing it,” McVeigh said. “I focused as much as possible on that one guy.”

The right-hander got the called third strike looking, ending the threat and giving a lot of his teammates a feeling that it was going to be their day.

It sure helped that the pitcher went out an inning later and did it again. After yielding two-out singles to Dan Hopkins and Kelly, McVeigh fell behind 2-0 and 3-1 to Lions first baseman Luke Sprague.

 “I don’t look at the catcher’s glove until I’m ready and on that 3-1, 3-2 slider in the fifth, I just told myself ‘get it over, because you’re going to get him,’” MeVeigh said. “I’m always confident. I told (Igoe) at the start of that batter we were going to get him on two sliders, so it ended up working out.”

“His curveball was working today and I saw it within him when he said I want these two pitches and we’re going to get this guy,” Igoe said. “Going back behind the plate, I knew that inning was over.”

McVeigh pumped in back to back sliders and again got a called third strike to end the frame and quell O’Hara’s momentum.

Igoe led off the sixth inning with his second double and again had Meyer run for him. Again, Meyer came around to score, this time on a pinch-hit RBI single by Jack Gannon that put La Salle up 4-0.

Senior David Kratz relieved McVeigh to start the sixth inning and just came out firing. The lefty threw seven straight strikes to start his outing and rang up the second and third batters in a 1-2-3 sixth.

O’Hara got a run off Kratz in the seventh when Jim White singled and later scored on an RBI double by Hopkins, but Kratz got the next batter to fly out to Sean McCallum in center to pick up the save and ending the game by sending the La Salle dugout out to dogpile behind the mound.

“Colin basically showed me how to succeed against this team and I just followed in his steps,” Kratz said. “For him to come out today and pitch the way he did with that kind of confidence, it was the performance of the year by far for him.”

CARDINAL O’HARA 000 000 1 – 1 6 0

LA SALLE 020 011 x – 4 6 3

2B: L – Justin Igoe (2); CO – Dan Hopkins. Multiple hits: L – Igoe 2-3; CO – Jim White 3-4, Hopkins 2-4