Published: June 14, 2008 12:04 am            

Bulldogs strike late to drop Eagles

ALTOONA — The Somerset baseball team’s dream of gold had a silver lining Friday night at Blair County Ballpark.

The Golden Eagles (19-7), who had soared to 18 of 19 wins since mid-April, fell to Berwick 6-2 in the PIAA Class AAA championship.

“You’ve got to be proud of these guys,” Somerset coach Steve Costea said. “We played well. We hit the ball right at people, that’s going to happen in baseball. I’m happy for my guys. I’m happy with the effort, I’m happy with the kids. It’s a great experience for them to be here. Second place is not what we had in mind, but we ran into a great team.”



The District 2 champion Bulldogs (19-7) had timely hitting and strong pitching from winning pitcher Scott Berkes.

“They got the timely hits and we didn’t,” Costea said. “Berkes kept us off stride.”

Berwick got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fourth. With one out, catcher David Albertson and Alex Sobeleski hit back-to-back singles.

A.J. Minaly’s single through the gap scored Albertson’s courtesy runner Derek Watts for a 1-0 Bulldogs lead.

The Bulldogs added two more runs in the fifth. Wahl walked Robert Albertson, who went to second on a sacrifice bunt by Steve Lazar. Jon Wilson’s single to left scored Albertson and allowed Wilson to move to second.

Berkes delivered a single to left that plated Wilson. Wahl was lifted for Brett Christner, who walked David Albertson, but then got Alex Sobeleski in a sacrifice fly and a ground-out by Minaly.

After Berkes walked Chase Dykstra and Joe Foltz to lead off the sixth, the right-hander gave way to reliever Zach Lazar. A ground-out by Tyler Uphouse moved the runners into scoring position.

Jordan Kaufman’s infield single scored Dykstra and a Cody Hemminger sacrifice fly to right plated Foltz to pull Somerset to within 3-2.

But Berwick responded with three runs in the bottom of the frame to put the game out of reach.

“We caught lightning in a bottle three-quarters of the way through the season,” Berwick coach Brian Pinterich said. “It’s been an unbelievable ride.”

Six seniors helped the Golden Eagles in their run to the silver.

“Our seniors have been great for the whole school,” Costea said. “It will be a group we really miss. We have the tradition, we have the pride. We’ll keep moving forward.”

The Golden Eagles players were disappointed, but were proud of their second place showing.

“The medal we received wasn’t the one we wanted,” Wahl said. “We’re really proud that we got this far.”

Added Costea: “We went further than anyone else has ever gone in Somerset County. We came up short by a couple runs and I can’t fault that. We played a great season.”

        

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