Baseball Playoffs Update 2026 – Seniors Have One Last Run At States After Stumble Against South Park

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For seniors on the 2026 boys baseball team, the goal was a return to sophomore year form and a WPIAL championship as a starter. The team’s 7-6 win against Charleroi guaranteed June playoff baseball in the PIAA playoff rounds.

A reprint of the Facebook pages’ overview of the win:

WPIAL 3A QUARTERFINALS – AVONWORTH 7, CHARLEROI 6: Sometimes in baseball, you just have to find a way, and Avonworth found a way, clawing past Charleroi with a 7th-inning rally that culminated in a walk-off walk for Nick Blackson, a 7-6 victory that advances the Lopes in the 3A semifinal. Cooper Scharding and Case Latore had 3 hits each, Latore and Jack Dolan drove in 2 runs each, and Scharding struck out 10 over 6.2 innings of often dominant pitching, but the true story of the win was found pitch by pitch, at-bat by at-bat, with bounces going both ways, ending in the most improbable of comebacks to earn a trip to the next round.

Fresh off their first playoff win since the 1990s, Charleroi immediately quashed any notion that they were just happy to be here or nervous about facing a 1 seed, taking advantage of some defensive miscues and a pair of hard hits to jump out to a 2-0 lead before Avonworth even came to bat. But in their half of the first, Avonworth struck back, batting around and taking a 4-2 lead. Latore lasered a triple into the right field gap, scoring Scharding and Blackson to tie it at 2. Dolan followed with a triple the other way, over the left fielder, to score Latore and give the Lopes the lead, and Sam Hustwit drove in Dolan on a fielder’s choice to make it 4-2.

Avonworth picked up another run in the bottom of the second on an error to make it 5-2. With two runners on and no outs, the Lopes were poised to blow it open. Enter Jake Corrin, Charleroi relief pitcher, who got Charleroi out of the 2nd without further damage and then kept the high-powered Lopes offense in fits with a steady diet of offspeed pitches for the next 4 innings, allowing 3 hits but holding the Lopes scoreless. Meanwhile, the Cougars picked up a run in the 4th, but Scharding kept them quiet otherwise through 6 innings, consistently locating a blazing fastball. But Charleroi turned the tables in the top of the 7th when, down to their last out, with a runner on second base, the Cougars picked up four consecutive clean singles to pick up a 4th run, then a tying 5th run, and finally the go-ahead 6th run.

Facing down the possibility of a second consecutive early playoff exit, Avonworth claimed victory pitch by pitch with dictionary-definition small ball. Carson Franc and Patrick Bykowski each reached after being hit by pitches, and Jayden Warman drew a walk to load the bases with one out. Charleroi picked up the second out, bringing Scharding to the plate. Down to his last strike, Scharding fouled off two pitches and then smoked a ground ball – right at the shortstop, but just hard enough to knock him ever so slightly off balance as he threw to second, such that Warman slid headfirst into second ever so slightly before the throw, as Franc raced home with the tying run and everyone safe on the bases. Up came Blackson, battling leg cramps and recovering from a lower-body injury, and calmly watched four balls out of the strike zone for a walk-off walk, as Bykowski trotted home to a joyous – and more than a little bit relieved – group of Lopes.

With the win, Avonworth advances to the 3A semifinal, where a potential classic awaits as they take on rival South Park – a 5 seed, in the tournament, but a consensus top 3 team in WPIAL 3A for most of the regular season. The win also clinches a spot for the Lopes in the PIAA State Playoffs, a return to the site of their improbable 2024 run to the state final after capturing the WPIAL Championship that year.

South Park completed the WPIAL playoff sweep of baseball and softball in 2026 with a 5-2 win, ending the initial goals of the team and setting up a consolation match against Riverside on Tuesday the 27th before PIAA playoffs begin in June.