By Phil Murphy
Senior Multimedia/Content Editor
Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area
*Click HERE for the story and highlights from the first five innings on Monday.*
For the WCAC championship between Bishop Ireton and Paul VI to reach its completion, it took three days, two stadiums and two states.
But the continuation of the final at Annandale High School on Wednesday swung violently in the Panthers’ favor in only four pitches.
Play had been suspended on Monday at the Bowie Baysox Stadium in Bowie, Md., after five innings with the Cardinals ahead, 3-2.
After the first pitch of the sixth inning — and the afternoon — a ground out to short by Panther senior outfielder Cody Reeves, junior pinch hitter Tyler Costello launched the third pitch of his at-bat over the left-field wall, incoming wind notwithstanding.
Costello then belted what proved the game- and league-winning sacrifice fly in the seventh, as Paul VI beat Bishop Ireton, 4-3, for its second WCAC title in the last three seasons.
Seventh-year Panther coach Billy Emerson guessed correctly on a Cardinal move to the bullpen and prepared both of his designated hitters for the switch in advance.
“Charles Deacon is second-team All-WCAC DH and he’s a left-handed hitter,” said Emerson, who coached at Annandale — site of the championship game — in 1999. “We use Charles most of the time against the right-handed pitchers. And they brought in the lefty. We talked last night and we told Tyler that we thought they were going to play the lefty today. That’s what they had left.
“We told Tyler, ‘You’re probably going to be hitting second’ … Tyler’s got the propensity to hit the long ball, that’s his specialty … If we don’t get that there, we might be walking out of here with it, 3-2.”
Added Costello, who has two of his three home runs in the playoffs: “In the dugout, I was thinking, ‘If Cody gets on, then all I’m going to do is bunt him over. No big deal.’ But he doesn’t get on and I go up there. I’ve got to figure out a way to get on base.
“I get up 2-0 and I look down at Coach [Tad] Davidovich and he gives me a sign to look for a pitch right down the middle. I got one and I just swung for the fences.”
Subbing in Costello was not Emerson’s only gamble on Wednesday.
Bishop Ireton rallied in the bottom of the seventh inning, moving the tying runner to third base with the go-ahead — and conference-winning run — on second.
Emerson moved the infield in on Cardinal pinch hitter Brian Lewis with one out, hoping to prevent the tying run on a ground ball. But after three pitches, Emerson called his Panthers back, reducing the risk of a line-drive single.
On the first pitch after the move, Lewis hit a sharp liner toward left-center, but Paul VI shortstop Dan Savage leaped to interception the shot. With the base runners in motion on contact, Savage dashed to vacant second base for the championship-clinching, unassisted double play.
“Just the pitch before, I was playing infield-in all the way to try to get the runner out at home,” said Savage, who was 2-for-4 with a double in the two-day title game. “Then, Coach goes, ‘You know what, play medium depth.’ And I did. Sure enough it came right to me.
“I just leapt up and grabbed it … It feels great to get that win and be right on top.”
Added Emerson, whose team has won 15 of its last 17 games: “You roll the dice and sometimes things work out. We initially had our infield in and, when we got two strikes on the hitter, we moved them back. The guy hits a line drive the next pitch he moves back. That’s baseball.
“Sometimes you go with things and it makes you look bad. And then sometimes you go with things and they work out. It was just that kind of day for us, things working out.”
Timely fortune has been characteristic of Paul VI this season. It started 5-7 overall, 2-6 against the WCAC, before a cataclysmic turnaround.
And having reached the conference title game in four of the last five seasons, playoff runs have become the norm.
Even with their backs up against the wall on Monday in Bowie, the Panthers were bailed out by rain showers when the Cardinals grabbed the impetus — and the lead — after an error came around to score in the home half of the fifth inning.
But a change of scenery — and 48 hours — revitalized Paul VI.
“It actually felt like the sixth inning,” Savage said of the mid-game restart. “The dugout was loud; it was loud as I’d ever heard it before. It was really great to get that from them.”
Added Emerson: “On the bus ride home from the Baysox stadium, we kind of felt like the Lord was looking out for us, because He stopped the momentum right there. They had it all.”
Email: pmurphy@digitalsports.com
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