By JOSE NEGRON
All season long, Serra Catholic has relied on a dependable brand of defense and strong pitching to win games.
Success in those two areas helped the Eagles earn 16 victories during the regular season and led to them advancing to the WPIAL semifinals for the sixth time since 2015.
Struggles in those same areas led to fourth-seeded Serra Catholic’s elimination from the WPIAL playoffs as it suffered a 12-0 loss in five innings to top-seeded Seton LaSalle in the Class 2A semifinals Tuesday at West Mifflin.
The Eagles (18-4), who still get the chance to play in a third-place consolation game next week before entering the PIAA playoffs, committed four errors on defense, including three in a seven-run fourth inning for the Rebels (21-2).
Serra’s pitchers had trouble finding the strike zone throughout the afternoon as well, walking eight batters and hitting a pair.
“They only had eight hits and five earned runs. We just had too many walks and too many errors,” Serra Catholic head coach Brian Dzurenda said. “We have to clean things up and just get ready to play next week. We can’t dwell on the past here.”
Five different pitchers toed the rubber through four innings for Serra Catholic.
Left-hander Zach Karp was hit with the loss, despite an OK performance.
Four days after tossing a four-hit shutout against Laurel in the quarterfinals, Karp allowed five runs (four earned) on four hits in two innings. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out one.
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