Parkland High baseball team falls to Wyoming Valley West in PIAA 4A semifinals – Allentown Morning Call

PINE GROVE — Chris Rabasco stood in the on-deck circle, hoping for one final trip to the plate.

He never had the chance to swing the bat as a Parkland player again.

Wyoming Valley West starter Bill Gregory squashed the one serious rally by the Trojans when he got Justin Afflerbach to ground out on a full-count pitch in the top of the seventh inning. That play allowed the Spartans to secure a 5-1 win in a PIAA Class 4A baseball semifinal Monday afternoon.

While Wyoming Valley West (17-1 overall) celebrated a berth in Friday’s 4A state final, Parkland (27-2) dealt with the disappointment of falling one win short of a trip to Penn State. The Trojans had suffered just one loss, to Northampton during the regular season, before Monday. Their game against Wyoming Valley West marked the second time this season someone outclassed them.

“You’ve got to give them credit,” Parkland coach Tony Galucy said. “They got the big hits when they needed to, and they weren’t cheap ones. They hit the ball hard.

“If you’re going to go down, hey, I’d rather have the other team win the game like that.”

Wyoming Valley West won with a combination of tough at-bats and solid work from Gregory. The Spartans scored three two-out runs in the first three innings, while Gregory carried a three-hit shutout into the seventh.

Tyler Yankosky pushed Wyoming Valley West ahead to stay in the second. After fouling off three 1-2 pitches from Parkland starter Rhett Jacoby, Yankosky ripped an RBI double off the fence in right-center field.

The Spartans took command in the third when No. 3 hitter Ryan Hogan smacked a double and Justin Vought followed with a two-run homer to left. Vought’s homer came with Jacoby again one strike away from escaping an inning without allowing a run.

Hogan and Vought combined for three hits, four runs scored and two RBIs.

“They’re a really good hitting team, I’ll give them that,” Jacoby said. “They were looking for my curveball a lot. A lot of their hits were off my offspeed [stuff]. The fastball I was able to get them to roll over, pop up and get some good things.

“A lot of them were golf-swinging at the curveball,” he added. “A lot of them were down in the zone or outside, and they were just throwing the hands out and getting some good hits. The wind didn’t really help us out too much either. The wind was really blowing out today.”

Parkland stung a few balls early but managed just one hit through the first four innings. The Trojans didn’t have a runner touch third base until pinch-hitter Harrison Rabenold, who singled with two outs in the seventh, scored from second on Jeff Strisovsky’s RBI single.

“[Gregory] mixed it up well,” Rabasco said. “His slider was tight. It didn’t drop a lot, but it had good side-to-side movement, and it was almost the same speed as his fastball. He could throw it for a strike, and he got a lot of kids on that.”

Afflerbach followed Strisovsky’s single by working the count to 3-1 with two runners on base and Rabasco, the potential tying run, on deck. Gregory made sure Rabasco never reached the batter’s box, throwing a second strike to Afflerbach before Afflerbach hit his game-ending groundout.

That left Parkland a bit short of its ultimate goal in a season that featured plenty of other successes. The Trojans established a school record with 27 wins. They won the inaugural Eastern Pennsylvania Conference title and a third straight District 11 4A title.

Parkland also advanced farther in the state playoffs than any District 11 4A program since the 2009 Trojans reached the state final. The 2015 Trojans couldn’t quite match that postseason run from six years ago.

“It’s real disappointing,” Jacoby said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

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