AJ Sports

By Tom Robinson
Go Lackawanna sports correspondent

 ALTOONA—Steve Mills and Pete Doggett provided the key pitches. Matt Mortell and Mike Burke made the biggest defensive plays. Cory Spangenberg and Tony Castellano delivered the long home runs.

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Abington Heights players celebrate after the final out of their 3-2 state Class 3A championship game victory over Chartiers Valley Friday.

Stephanie Walkowski

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Cory Spangenberg hit a two-run homer to lead the offense in a 3-2 victory.

Stephanie Walkowski

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With contributions coming from many different directions, Abington Heights held off Chartiers Valley, 3-2, Friday to win the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Class 3A baseball championship game.

Abington Heights led, 3-0, going to the bottom of the seventh, but Chartiers Valley scored twice and had runners at the corners with one out when Doggett came on in relief.

Doggett retired both batters he faced to save the win for Steve Mills, who started and threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings.

“It can’t end any better than that,” said Castellano, one of eight seniors who were on the team bus that made the 198-mile trip back in time for graduation later in the afternoon. “We got a little excitement at the end and that’s the way you want to go out.”

Catcher Matt Mortell picked two runners off base to help keep Chartiers Valley scoreless until the bottom of the last inning.

“I throw behind runners to keep them close for our pitchers,” Mortell said. “That’s one less thing for our pitchers to worry about.

“If they keep getting off, I’ll take what I can get.”

Mike Burke charged a slow roller from Ken Terpack and threw across the diamond to Matt Badamo to beat Terpack’s head-first dive, ending the game. If Terpack had been safe, the Colts would have tied the game.

“Burkey very rarely makes a bad throw,” Mortell said. “Once he fielded that ball, I knew it was over with.”

When Burke’s throw passed him in the middle of the infield, Doggett threw his glove in the air, touching off the Abington Heights celebration that continued all the way to Clarks Summit where the team was escorted through the borough by police and met by cheers at Grove Street Stadium for the start of graduation ceremonies.

“When I came in, in that situation, I was so nervous,” said Doggett, who struck out the first batter he faced.

Spangenberg followed Mike Umerich’s two-out single in the third inning with a two-run homer to right-centerfield.

Castellano built the lead to 3-0 with a blast to left-center, leading off the sixth.

Spangenberg, the leader in runs scored, and Castellano, the leader in runs batted in, wound up sharing the team home run lead with eight.

“We’ve gotten the big hits all year,” Comets coach Bill Zalewski said after his team closed the season on a 15-game winning streak. “We got a couple of big hits out of Cory Spangenberg and Tony Castellano.”

The win gives Abington Heights its first PIAA team state title since the boys’ cross country program won its second title in 1981.

“We’ve had this team together forever,” Spangenberg said. “We have great coaches and great players.

“We just knew if we put it all together at the right time, we could do this.”

Abington Heights won the Class 2A cross country championship in 1965 and the Class 3A championship in 1981.

Brian Egan, the lead runner on the first cross country state champs, and Frank Tilley, that team’s other all-state honoree, then formed half of a state championship relay in the 1966 track season.

Egan and Tilley were joined by cross country teammate Tom Sallom and Jim Keisling for a state record 8:18.8 in the Class B two-mile relay the following spring.

Skip Brinkley won a state track title that same year with a long jump of 22-1 ¾.

Abington Heights waited until 1980 for its next state title when Doug Davis threw the shot put 58-3 for the Class 3A title.

Kim McGreevy gave the school its only girls’ state championship in Class AAA track and field in 1991 when she ran the 1600 in 4:59.77.

Abington Heights produced another individual state gold medal winner earlier this year when 285-pound wrestler Evan Craig won the Class 3A championship.