Donovan
TAYLOR — Old Forge worked into its customary postseason position – playing for a District 2 baseball title.
A move up in classification and a rival’s uncommon season, however, combined to keep the Blue Devils from completing a championship run.
Charles Azarsky reached base in all four plate appearances and drove in four runs Wednesday as Riverside remained unbeaten overall by beating visiting Old Forge, 12-2, in six innings in the District 2 Class 2A championship game at David Noakes Park.
Old Forge won the District 2 Class A championship in 2019 before all teams sat out last year because of the pandemic.
Since then, the Blue Devils moved up a class for baseball. When it did, Old Forge ran into Riverside, which it had already lost to twice while the Vikings were streaking to the Lackawanna League Division 3 title.
“It’s tough to beat a time three times in a season; you hear that all the time,” Riverside coach Sean Hughes said. “Two towns, three or four miles apart, everybody knows everything about each other. You know their strengths and weaknesses.”
Riverside, however, simply has too many of those strengths this season.
The Vikings kept going Wednesday, winning their first district championship in 20 years.
Old Forge has gone 8-3 while playing in a championship game in 11 of the last 14 District 2 tournaments.
The Blue Devils (9-12) entered the eight-team tournament as the seventh seed, but, with Sean Donovan leading the way, they eliminated the second and third seeds before falling to the top-seeded Vikings.
Donovan went 9-for-10 in the district tournament. Riverside’s R.J. Santarsiero finally stopped him with a strikeout in the last at-bat of the championship game.
Before that, Donovan went 4-for-4 in each of the first two rounds and also picked up a pitching win.
Santarsiero got all but the last out in a four-hitter in the final.
“We lucked out that they had not seen R.J. yet,” Hughes said. “That wasn’t planned, but it was just the way it worked out with the way our rotation was going.”
Old Forge reached the final by beating Lackawanna Division 4 champion Lackawanna Trail for the second straight time with a 5-2 quarterfinal victory. The Blue Devils then defeated Elk Lake, 15-8.
The Blue Devils put together a threat in the title game, scoring in the second and third innings to force a 2-2 tie.
Riverside then had six straight batters reach with two out in the bottom of the third, followed by the first five reaching to start the fourth. That allowed the Vikings to score four runs in each inning on the way to clinching early on the 10-run rule.
Michael Rickert, who had two hits and scored twice, had the hit that ended the game with one out in the bottom of the sixth, driving in Azarsky.
Nico Killino and Joe Granko had the RBI singles for Old Forge in the second and third.
Angelo Fumanti led off the second with a single, took second on a wild pitch, then scored on Killino’s two-out hit to center field.
Donovan started the third with a single, but was erased from the bases when Ethan Tallo grounded into a forceout. Tallo took second on a passed ball and scored on Granko’s single down the right-field line.
Old Forge finished seventh out of eight in Division of the Lackawanna during the regular season with a 4-10 record.
