The Baseball U of Pennsylvania Collegiate Summer League is primarily made up of players who have already started their college careers.
Zack Kovalchik and Duke Stafursky, two recent Valley View graduates planning to start college careers in 2022, found ways to help Team Texas Orange reach Saturday’s championship game with a 6-5 victory over Team White Thursday night at the Pittston Area Primary Center.
Orange will face Team Camo, which rendered the regular-season standings irrelevant with a 9-5 upset of first-place Black at Keystone College.
Camo and Orange will play Saturday at 1 at Pittston Area for the title.
Orange trailed 2-0 after 4½ innings before scoring in four straight innings.
The game was tied, 4-4, before Kovalchik led off the top of the eighth by reaching when he was hit by a pitch, He came around to score the first of two runs and Stafursky took it from there.
Stafursky worked the final two innings, giving up just an unearned run on a hit and a walk while striking out two.
Kovalchik is headed to play at Sacred Heart and Stafursky at Bloomsburg.
Matt Clarke (Hanover Area, Maryland-Baltimore County) chipped in with a double, run and RBI in the win.
Hunter Ralston (Pittston Area, University of Scranton) started for Orange, going five innings and giving up two runs on four hits and four walks while striking out two.
Joe Rossi (Holy Cross, Delaware Valley College) drove in two runs for White. August Bednar (Dallas) added two hits.
Camo was last in the four-team league with a 5-17 record while Black won its final 13 games to finish 18-5 and 6½ games ahead of the pack.
After Camo jumped out to a 5-0 lead after 2½ innings, Black fought back for a tie with five runs in the bottom of the fourth.
Tim Cavanaugh, who finished 2-for-4 with three RBI, doubled in the last of three runs in the top of the fifth when Camo moved back in front.
Cavanaugh, a Holy Redeemer graduate, batted .213 in 14 starts and 18 total games this spring as a senior outfielder with Atlantic 10 Conference and National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I St. Joseph’s University.
Toby Hallman (Wyoming Area, Widener) and Lorenzo Febbo (Old Forge, Mansfield) handled the pitching for the winners.
Hallman gave up five runs on nine hits and three walks while striking out five in a 113-pitch, eight-inning effort. Febbo worked a spotless ninth.
Michael Show, a recent Abington Heights graduate how is headed to Wilkes University, had two hits, a run and an RBI for Black.
