Hempfield faces serious challenge in state baseball championship game

To this point, the greatest challenges Hempfield’s baseball team faced came from inside the Lancaster-Lebanon League.

The Black Knights lost three times this season to rival L-L Section One Manheim Township, including in the championship game of the league playoffs.

Hempfield also came within an out of being eliminated in the quarterfinal of the District Three playoffs by Section One brethren Penn Manor.

All that likely changes Thursday, when the Knights play for the biggest prize in their sport in the PIAA Class 6A state final against La Salle College High.

The game will be played at 4:30 p.m. at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park at Penn State University.

La Salle (25-3) has won 14 in a row, and three state championships beginning in 2012. The program has sent 57 players to college baseball in the past decade.

The current squad includes a sophomore pitcher, Brighton Fontaine, committed to Alabama, and a 1B/OF power bat, Simon Chandler, who’ll play at Virginia Tech.

The Explorers beat Hazleton 10-4 in the semifinals Monday. Hempfield ground out a 9-7 semifinal win over Downingtown West.

The Knights trailed 4-1 through three inning in that one, put scored eight times in the fourth and fifth innings. They did it mostly by putting the ball in play after tough at bats, and making few mistakes than the Whippets, who struck out 13 times and committed two critical errors.

La Salle hasn’t used Fontaine much; its key arms are junior Jack Pye (9-1, 0.86 ERA, 49 innings), junior Chris Cavalante (6-0, 1.14 ERA) and senior Cole Kochanowicz (3-0, 1.82 ERA, 13 appearances).

Pye pitched into the seventh inning of La Salle’s 1-0 defeat of Downingtown East in last week’s quarterfinals and did not throw in the game Monday.

Hempfield starter Logan Harelson, a South Florida commit, threw 100 pitches in Monday’s win. Junior Brody Gebhard got the last eight outs of that game in relief, after throwing a no-hitter in the Knights’ 3-0 quarterfinal defeat of Erie McDowell last week.

Harelson will thus be unavailable to pitch Thursday due to PIAA pitch-count limitations. The rest of the staff should be, including Gebhard, senior righty Drew Benchich, (a West Liberty state commit) and senior righty Ryan Jackson (0.52 ERA in 15 regular-season innings.)

A state championship would be the Lancaster-Lebanon League’s eighth, and second in 6A in the last three years (Warwick, 2022).

Thursday’s game can be watched live on Pennsylvania Cable Network’s PCN Select. Go to pcntv.com/piaa-sports/baseball/ for information.

Tickets must be purchased online at https://www.piaa.org/sports/tickets.aspx?from=hellobar.