HOMER CITY — It was billed as a battle of two elite offenses.
Entering Thursday’s PIAA Class 2A baseball quarterfinal, Johnsonburg and Shenango each boasted a team batting average above .350.
At First Commonwealth Bank Field, however, the pitchers had their way. After seven deadlocked innings dominated by pitching and defense, the District 7 champions rallied and took advantage of Johnsonburg’s mistakes in the eighth.
The result was a 2-1, extra-inning victory for Shenango that ended Jburg’s perfect season and the Rams’ bid for a state championship.
“We hit the ball really hard probably six or seven times in the game, just right at them,” Johnsonburg coach Michael Porter said. “The ball goes 10 feet right or left and we probably score five or six runs in that game. They weren’t really shutting us down, we just weren’t finding holes.”
Despite ample scoring chances for each offense, Luke Zimmerman and Braeden D’Angelo traded zeroes in the scorebook most of the game. Zimmerman’s lone blemish across six innings came via a solo home run by Tyler Camerer in the fifth that cleared the centerfield fence.
“We kind of figured that Luke would keep them pretty quiet,” Porter said. “He’s one of those guys with a lively arm that nobody really knows too much about, since he’s a freshman, but he throws like a senior. We suspected that we had the pitching advantage and we suspected that if we could get four or five runs, we’d win the game.”
Jburg had clung to a 1-0 lead at the time, which it gained on a two-out RBI double by Ethan Wells in the third that plated Aiden Zimmerman.
The Wildcats successfully controlled the Rams’ running game, which had stolen an average of eight bases per game entering Thursday.
“The first guy they had on the mound had a real short move to the plate,” Porter said. “He kind of kept guys close, and after we got one guy thrown out on a close play, we got hesitant on running too much because we didn’t want to give outs away.”
The Rams swiped two bags in the game while being thrown out once.
Drama ensued in the seventh when Camerer came to the plate again. With two outs and a runner aboard, Camerer drove a ball to left field off of Rams reliever Aiden Zimmerman.
The fly ball looked like it was going to sail over the fence and set the Wildcats up for a trip to the PIAA semifinals. Instead, Luke Zimmerman, who moved to left field when his brother relieved him on the mound in the seventh, made a catch that Porter said “might be on Sportscenter tomorrow.”
The freshman leaped above the eight-foot fence at his back and pulled the would-be home run ball back, securing the inning’s third out and preserving the tie.
It appeared to be the play that would save Johnsonburg’s season. The Rams had the top of their order up in the bottom half of the inning, but Shenango reliever Zach Herb worked around back-to-back, two-out singles by Camron Marciniak and Wells to force extra innings.
Trouble struck the Rams in the top of the eighth when Ethan Bintrim singled to lead off the inning.
While Aiden Zimmerman got back-to-back flyouts, Bintrim took second base on a wild pitch, moving himself into scoring position. Bintrim dashed to third on a ground ball by Gabe Yanssens, and when an infield error prevented the Rams from completing the putout, Bintrim continued home and scored the run that would ultimately end Johnsonburg’s season.
“Plays that we typically make, we didn’t make today,” Porter said. “We probably had twice as many errors in today’s game as we’ve had in any game this season. You’re not going to beat good teams like that.”
Herb struck out the Rams’ first two batters looking in the bottom of the eighth. After a Jefferson Freeburg single, centerfielder Cre Calabria tracked down a deep fly ball off the bat of Luke Zimmerman to end the game.
Johnsonburg’s undefeated streak ended at 22. The Rams were eliminated from the unforgiving PIAA single-elimination playoffs. And Shenango earned the right to play for a spot in the Class 2A championship game.
“They’re 16, 17, 18-year-old kids,” Porter said. “You’re going to have those days in baseball. Even with the mistakes we made, we responded. The game didn’t get away from us, we just couldn’t get the one hit we needed with guys in scoring position today and that was the difference.”
Luke Zimmerman finished with four strikeouts while scattering three hits over six innings pitched. D’Angelo allowed six hits in 3.1 innings before Herb, the game’s winning pitcher, gave up just two hits while striking out three in 4.2 crucial innings of relief.
Aiden Zimmerman finished 2-for-4 at the plate for the Rams while Marciniak, Wells, Collin Porter, Eric Panebianco, Freeburg and Luke Zimmerman each tallied a hit.
Johnsonburg finishes 22-1 in perhaps the program’s most successful season since its 2013 state championship. The Rams will miss their two graduating seniors, infielder Dalton Stahli and left-handed pitcher Gabe Watts, but will return the rest of their roster for what will be a promising 2022 season.
“Every sport they play, whether it be wrestling, golf or football, these guys are performing at a high level as freshmen, sophomores and juniors,” Porter said. “We’re set up next year to be as good, and possibly better, than this year’s team.”
Shenango (22-2) advances to the Class 2A semifinals, where it will meet Serra Catholic, a fellow member of District 7.
“It’s a heck of a season for these kids,” Porter said. “To lose an extra-innings game in the quarterfinals of the state playoffs, there’s no shame in that. But we definitely felt we had more to do.”
AT HOMER CITY
R H E
Shenango 000 001 01 2 4 2
Johnsonburg 001 000 00 1 7 4
Shenango: Braeden D’Angelo (2 BB), Zach Herb (4) (3 SO, 2 BB) and Braeden Ziegler
Johnsonburg: Luke Zimmerman (4 SO, 1 BB), Aiden Zimmerman (1 SO) and Ethan Wells
