Serra Catholic’s Alain Girman stole the show, tossing a five-inning no-hitter in the Eagles' 10-0 Class A semifinal win over Vincentian Academy, while Pine-Richland (Gibsonia)’s Stephen Laylock tossed a two-hit shutout in an 11-0, six-inning win over Upper St. Clair in the Class AAAA semifinals.
Girman’s game including him striking out 13 of the 15 batters he faced with the other two Vincentian outs being on softly hit balls in the infield. He was a single walk in the third inning from tossing a perfect game.
"He was throwing gas, absolute gas," Serra catcher Chris Miller told the McKeesport Daily News. "That was probably the hardest I’ve ever seen him throw. Most of the time, we were throwing fastballs because they were completely behind it."
The Daily News cited a local scout who said he had Girman, a sophomore, throwing a consistent 88 miles per hour.
"Boy was that ball popping," Serra manager Brian Dzurenda told the Daily News. "He was as dominating as you can get. He is an amazing, amazing pitcher. There was no doubt in my mind he was throwing 90 miles per hour. They couldn’t smell it."
Serra Catholic used a seven-run fourth inning that saw 13 Eagles come to the plate to break the game open. Going to the fourth, Serra led 2-0 thanks to a two-run first. Serra will face Neshannock in a June 2 title game at Consol Energy Park in Washington.
Neshannock (New Castle) got a great pitching performance as well in a 4-2 win over California. The Lancers' Zach Altmyer went 6 2/3 innings, allowing just the one run. Alex Strittmatter then picked up the save by striking out the final California batter with the tying run at second.
2. WPIAL baseball: Laylock’s gem moves Pine-Richland into Class AAAA title game: Laylock, meanwhile, also threw a great game in the Class AAAA semifinals helping Pine-Richland to the 10-0, six-inning win over Upper St. Clair. Laylock allowed just two hits while striking out seven in the six innings. More impressively, after allowing the first two batters to reach on a double and a walk, he retired 12 in a row before a fifth-inning hit by USC.
Pine-Richland will take on defending champion North Allegheny in the title game June 1. The Tigers beat Peters Township 3-1 thanks to a three-hitter by Tanner Wilt, who had 12 strikeouts in the game. Meanwhile, the Class AAA title game will feature Hopewell, a 5-3 winner over Elizabeth Forward, taking on Moon, a 5-3 winner over Mt. Pleasant, on June 1, while in Class AA, Burrell, an 8-5 victor over Bishop Canevin, will take on Beaver Falls, a 7-6 winner over Center, on June 2. All title games are at Consol Energy Park.
3. PIAA won’t put spring football practice to a vote: The PIAA decided at its Board of Control meetings this past week that it doesn’t want spring football in Pennsylvania. So much so that it didn’t even believe a vote was necessary. That decision was made after Karns City athletic director Tom Wagner, a PIAA board member and representative of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Directors Association, told the board that of the 140 athletic directors that responded to an e-mail survey concerning spring football practice, over 80 percent rejected the idea, including some who are also football coaches.
While the PIAA didn’t vote on spring football practice, it did decide to allow teams to use blocking/tackling sleds and to allow teams to practice "form" tackling and blocking during offseason workouts.
4. Successful Serra football coach steps down: Serra Catholic (McKeesport) football coach Rich Bowen has resigned to take a full-time assistant job at Waynesburg University. Bowen helped take Serra Catholic to four WPIAL playoffs in his five years, including the 2007 WPIAL Class A championship. He had a record of 41-14 in his five years, including 36-10 in his final four seasons, all WPIAL playoff years. But the 2007 team was the only one to win a WPIAL playoff game. That team went 15-1 while wining the WPIAL title and advancing to the PIAA championship game, were it lost to Steelton-Highspire. Bowen has 19 years of head coaching experience, having also served as the head coach at Elizabeth Forward and Yough. This past season, Serra Catholic was 7-3 and lost 38-17 to Beth-Center in the first round of the WPIAL Class A playoffs. Waynesburg was 5-5 last season, including 2-4 in the President Athletic Conference under fifth-year head coach Rick Shepas.
Bowen’s resignation means that two of Serra Catholic’s very successful head boys coaches have stepped down this year. Earlier in the spring, longtime basketball coach Bob Rozanski announced his retirement.
5. Just a thought, random or not: Some in the football community are going to be upset over the PIAA’s decision to not consider spring football in Pennsylvania. They shouldn’t be.
It seems like the most overriding reason for wanting a two-week spring practice season – and really what can be accomplished in two weeks? – is that Pennsylvania is lagging behind in the number of NCAA Division I recruits from some of the other "big-time" football-playing states like Texas and California.
The thought among some is that those areas have better skill players because they have spring football. No, those areas have better skill players because they have better players. And they have better players because they have more players. While the population in Pennsylvania continues to shrink each decade, the population centers in California, Texas and a lot of the "Sun Belt" states continues to grow. With more people comes the chance to have more talented players.
Pennsylvania, and especially Western Pennsylvania, was the cream of the crop in terms of high school football for a long time during the 1940s, '50s, '60s and '70s. But the demise of the steel industry meant people were moving out of the area, and that hurt the number of big-time football players that would come out of the area.
But that isn’t the only reason. The game has changed, too. The game now focuses more on speed and athleticism than it does on strength and brute force, two areas where Pennsylvania football has always taken pride. When one thinks of Pennsylvania football, one thinks of hard-nosed running football teams that play great defense. That was as much out of necessity as it was choice. The weather in Pennsylvania late in the season favors teams that can run the ball and play defense. In the "Sun Belt," weather doesn’t play as big of a factor as it does in the Northeast, so teams can focus on skill players more as well.
All that being said, it’s not like Pennsylvania isn’t producing great football players. Just look at any major college or NFL roster and you are sure to find plenty of quality players from Pennsylvania. And that isn’t going to grow a lot nor will it decline a lot because there aren’t going to be two weeks of "official" spring practice in the state.
