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Poland chops away at UHS to advance
By BRIAN DZENIS
STRUTHERS
Whether it’s a big hit or a chopper that didn’t escape the infield, the Poland High School baseball team will take it.
There was a lot of the latter in Thursday’s Division II district semifinal game at Bob Cene Park as the Bulldogs beat Ursuline, 7-4.
“When you go up to the plate, you always want to crush the ball, but it doesn’t always end up like that,” Poland catcher Nick Petrolla said. “Sometimes choppers are important to getting on base and bringing in runs.”
Ursuline starter Vinny Lucente brought his arsenal of off-speed pitches to bear. While Poland could get contact, few balls made it out of the infield. The flip side is that those chop shots can be tough to defend.
“Vinny’s ball has a lot of sink, so he’ll get a lot of groundballs and not many chops,” Ursuline coach Matt Weymer said. “That ball is up in the air forever and you know that they’re running as fast as they can.
“When you field it, it has to be so quick and that was more of those than we saw all year.”
Petrolla, Dan Klase and Jared Burkert each knocked in a run with bloop singles in the first inning, giving starter Dan Klase a good cushion to work with.
“Putting up three in the first inning was important because we knew how good Lucente was,” Poland coach Rich Murray said. “We knew how tough he can be all year and we’ll take them any way we can get him.”
Klase didn’t give up a hit until the fourth inning. Anthony Potesta broke up the no-hitter and shutout bid with a double to center field, scoring Logan Pullin and Colgan Knox.
Klase needed a visit from the team trainer in the third inning after tweaking his knee. He pitched the entire fourth inning before getting pulled. He earned the win by giving up two runs on one hit and six walks with three strikeouts.
“It tightened up on him a little bit and he wasn’t getting ahead,” Murray said we have eight guys that can pitch so, we figure we can get someone in there who throws strikes,”
That someone was Eric White, who added to his lead with a chopper to score Anthony Calcagni. Poland (25-3) saw no further trouble until the seventh inning.
White gave up Ursuline’s (17-10) second hit to Vito Petrillo before hitting Drew Potesta with a pitch. He got a strikeout and another out on consecutive batters, but things began to unravel.
“I got two quick outs and started walking everybody,” White said. “[Klase and I] had our defense behind us, but I couldn’t figure it out.”
After a walk loaded the bases, Gianni Quattro knocked in Petrillo and another walk cut the Irish’s deficit to three runs with the potential go-ahead run at the plate with the bases loaded.
Nerves were running high, but Murray stuck with White.
“I’ve been nervous all week, so yeah, I was nervous then,” Murray said. “They all wanted me to take him out and I don’t like bringing someone in with the bases loaded. With a pinch-hitter coming in, I thought he could get him out.”
White struck out Josh Scheetz to seal the win.
Poland will face Marlington in the district final at Cene Park at 5 p.m.
“Hopefully we can do the same thing tomorrow and get a third straight district championship,” White said.