May 23, 2006 By Dave Stofcheck 4 min read

ROSTRAVER TWP. – Geibel Catholic ace Jeff Baluch struggled at times Monday, but the Gators’ offense didn’t. Geibel jumped out to leads of 4-0 and 8-2, before holding on for a 9-7 victory over Serra Catholic in the first round of the WPIAL Class A playoffs at the John DiVirgilio Sports Complex at Cedar Creek Park.

The Gators won a playoff game for the first time in 12 tries, dating back to the club’s first postseason appearance in 1982.

Because last week’s slate of games was rained out, Geibel (14-5) won’t have much time to savor its victory. The Gators return to action today, facing Springdale in the quarterfinals. The Dynamos defeated Monaca, 1-0, Monday.

The game will be played at Westmoreland County Community College at 2 p.m.

“With the rain we had last week, I kind of expected this,” said Geibel coach Mark Riggin. “I figured it would either be Tuesday or Wednesday. It’s fine either way.”

The Gators came into the postseason riding an 11-game winning streak, but hadn’t played in 12 days.

“I thought we might be sluggish with the bats, but we scored nine runs and put the ball in play,” Riggin said. “We were off so long that I figured we might be out of our rhythm. You just want to keep playing when you’re hot.”

Geibel’s Mario Fragello and Brendan Costantino, hitting sixth and seventh in the batting order, and leadoff man Nick Molchan had two hits each, with Fragello scoring three times and Molchan twice.

Costantino’s two-run double capped Geibel’s four-run first inning, and gave the Gators the lead for good.

Dean Lewandowski and Fragello had knocked in runs earlier in the inning with RBI-singles.

Serra (10-10) answered with a pair of runs in the bottom of the first inning, and parlayed five hits and two walks into five runs in the fifth to pull within 8-7.

Baluch surrendered a two-run single to Blain McClendon, run-scoring singles to Adam Christallini and Mike Blick and walked Curtis Nickel to force in a run during the fifth inning, in which he faced 10 batters and threw 37 pitches.

“I haven’t been hit that hard in a long time, and that was the first time I ever walked in a run,” Baluch said. “I had a lot of trouble throwing strikes in the fifth inning.”

Baluch, who normally relies heavily on an above-average fastball, turned to his curve ball often Monday after Serra seemed to have little trouble with the right-hander’s heat.

“We’re a fastball hitting team,” said Serra coach Brian Dzurenda. “We had the batting machines cranked up to 85 mph in practice. But when he (Baluch) threw the curve ball over for strikes, we struggled.”

In fact, except for the first and fifth innings, Baluch (5-2) looked like the dominant pitcher he was for most of the regular season. He retired 10 of 11 batters at one point, including striking out the side in the second inning.

After the fifth inning, Baluch retired Serra’s final six hitters, recording the second out in the bottom of the seventh inning on a come backer in which he ran to the first base bag for the out himself before striking out McClendon on a 3-2 pitch to end the game.

Leading 4-2, Geibel scored three times in the top of the third inning on Ryan Craft’s sacrifice fly, Molchan’s run-scoring triple and an error.

The Gators scored a run in the fourth inning when Fragello walked with two outs, stole second base and eventually scored on an error. Geibel made it 9-7 in the top of the sixth inning when Brandon Noonan was hit by a pitch, sacrificed to second and later scored on Tyler Charles’ RBI-single.

McClendon, the first of three Serra pitchers, suffered the loss. He allowed seven runs (six earned) on seven hits over the first three innings.

“Blain didn’t have his control early on,” Dzurenda said. “But I thought after the first inning, our pitchers did a good job.”