By ERIC KNOPSNYDER
HOMER CITY — The end to last year’s baseball season was especially painful for Bishop McCort, but this year’s might have been even more so.
The Crimson Crushers were eliminated from the PIAA Class A playoffs on Monday with a 5-4 loss to Serra Catholic when Zach Freeman was tagged out at home plate to end the game, denying Bishop McCort its first berth in the state title game.
Senior Colin Harrington said Monday that he was beginning to understand what his predecessors felt a year earlier when Burrell rallied to beat the Crimson Crushers in the state quarterfinals.
“The seniors told me last year when we lost that I didn’t know how it felt because I had one more year,” the shortstop said. “But it’s sinking in right now. It’s the worst feeling in the world.”
The Crimson Crushers have had an emotional postseason. They needed extra innings – and a second day – to beat Homer-Center for the District 6 championship. They went nine innings to eliminate Carmichaels in the first round of the PIAA playoff. They had to score in the bottom of the seventh to beat Neshannock in the quarterfinals.
And when Joe Hrbal singled with two outs in the bottom of the seventh on Monday, it looked like the Crushers might be able to pull out a fourth straight game in their final at-bat. But Serra’s Tyler Kugler made a throw to the plate that ended McCort’s magical run in heartbreaking fashion.
“I’m so proud of the whole team,” Harrington said. “To lose like that … we worked our tails off, outplayed them. What can you do? The kid (Hrbal) did everything right, got the single you needed, but it was a bang-bang play.”
It was a tough ending to a special season. The Crushers lost three of their first seven games before rattling off wins in 15 of 16 games, including 11 in a row heading into Monday.
That was little consolation to Freeman, one of nine seniors who played in his final game with the Crushers on Monday.
“The 19 wins previous to this game meant a lot and will be in the record books at McCort forever,” Freeman said, “but we felt that we could have had it all. We could have won a state title, but we came up short.”
Freeman expects the pain to fade in time, but said it will take awhile.
“It’s a crappy feeling right now for the players, but 30 years from now, I’ll be happy to say I’m a District 6 champion,” he said. “When it all comes down to it though, we didn’t accomplish our goal. We’re definitely not satisfied.”
Bishop McCort coach Denny Altimore tried to stress the positives to his players, but there were still plenty of tears after the game.
“The kids are hurting right now,” he said. “But life’s not always fair. And that’s what I told them. ‘Tomorrow, you’re going to get up and the sun will be up, hopefully, and life will go on. You just reflect on this and realize what a season you had.’
“I think it’s the best season any McCort baseball team has ever had. So I said, ‘You have a lot to be proud of. So next year, we just come back and get to the next level.’ We’ve got this pitching staff back, so who knows?”
Six of Bishop McCort’s starters on Monday were seniors, but, as Altimore said, his top two pitchers – Braxton Ferre and Sean Lenhart – are juniors. Eventually those younger players will be able to turn their attention to next year.
“It’s going to hurt tonight,” Altimore said. “It’s going to hurt tomorrow. Maybe in a couple of days the pain will ease and we’ll all realize life’s got to go on, so we’ll go on and get prepared for next year.”
