Down 7-0, Poland rallied to stun Niles, 8-7

Poland scored four runs in the seventh with Ryan Rovnak crossing the plate with the clincher

STRUTHERS — Nick Harper’s catch in center field will live in the minds of many spectators at Cene Park’s Field 2 on May 18, but Poland High’s baseball team will live to play another game.

The exceptional catch by the Niles High player snuffed a potential multiple-run hit by Poland’s Matt Pitzulo in the bottom of the sixth inning Monday night.

But Harper, a senior, snatched the long ball on the run to end the inning with the Red Dragons ahead, 7-4, with an inning remaining.

Poland parents and grandparents were already talking about turning in the uniforms.

Poland coach Rich Murray was wondering what he’d say during remarks at the team banquet.

Ryan Rovnak and eight other senior teammates were feeling uncomfortable with the thought of finishing their high school careers in an inglorious manner.

Then Poland exploded for four runs in the bottom of the seventh and won, 8-7, to advance to today’s Division II district semifinal against Hubbard.

Rovnak scored the winning run with two outs when the Niles catcher threw the ball past first base and into the outfield.

Rovnak was mobbed and Harper’s heroics seems for naught.

“I was praying to God he’d throw it in the outfield,” Rovnak said of Niles catcher Austin Lykins, who had just made a putout at home on Nick Elliott for the inning’s second out.

At that moment, Ryan was partially down the third-base line and waiting for the next move by the defense.

It came.

Poland seemed to be headed for defeat, especially through the first six innings.

“I’ve never seen a catch like that since I’ve been playing baseball,” Rovnak said of Harper’s catch that left everyone thinking: Niles victory.

Not Rovnak.

“We have 10 seniors and none of us wanted to end our careers like that. That would have been a bad game to lose, even though we had already beaten them twice. We never really quit.”

Poland (16-7) has reached the district finals five of the last six years under coach Murray.

“Being down 7-0, things were looking pretty dark,” said Murray. “We thought maybe it was one of those days, but we kept going, kept plugging away.”

Even when they were trailing, Murray and his assistants were buzzing about Harper’s catch.

“That was one of the best catches they’d seen in high school baseball. It was amazing. It was like Willie Mays.”

Starter Trent Vallinger was relieved by Dom DeFelice, who was replaced by eventual winner Sean Gabriel.

Vallinger started strong before Niles (15-10) got five hits off of the hard-throwing lefty.

Murray defended leaving Vallinger in.

“They were hitting dinks,” the Poland coach said of Niles. “I pulled the infield in one time and they had three or four dink hits. It wasn’t like they were hitting the ball hard off of him.”

As were his players, Niles coach Mike Guarnieri was deflated, but thought his team played solid.

“We’ve battled all year. Sometimes it comes down to the fact that you don’t do the little things. They kept pecking away at us and we couldn’t stop the bleeding.”

How did Guarnieri explain the ending?

“We gotta throw strikes, but we gave them a couple base runners and they took advantage of it.”

The coach also stood behind pitchers Jon Taylor, Evan Bollinger and Mike Watson

“We’ve lived and died with those three guys all season. We wanted to get five innings out of J.T. [Taylor], then go to Evan to try to close it out. It just didn’t work out.”

Hubbard beat Poland earlier this spring, 6-5.

“We know they hit the ball real well,” said Murray.