as the top-seeded Vikings blanked No. 4 Lakeland, 6-0, in the District 2 Class 3A semifinals Thursday afternoon at the University of Scranton\u2019s Volpe Field<\/a>.<\/p>\nBohenek, Jose Sosa and Chris Graff each had two hits for Riverside (19-2). Graff and Cooper Borowski both drove in two runs as the Vikings advanced to Thursday\u2019s final against No. 3 seed Dunmore. The Bucks outlasted No. 2 Lake-Lehman in its semifinal, 6-5, in 19 innings. It will be a rematch of last year\u2019s district championship game in which Dunmore rallied for four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning for a 4-3 victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my third district championship in four years,\u201d said Graff, a senior. \u201cWe won my freshman year, lost last year. It was tragic. We\u2019re just going to get after it and play the same baseball we always have. We\u2019re hoping for a better outcome. We\u2019re confident we\u2019re going to swing it, we\u2019re going to pitch it. We\u2019re all feeling really good.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve brought it up a lot this year to motivate ourselves. It hurt us all. We were talking in school today about how we were sitting on the field for five minutes watching them celebrate. We just needed to get back. We\u2019re going to come ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lakeland (15-6) certainly tried to spoil Riverside\u2019s return trip. Twice, the Chiefs had the bases loaded, but Caeleb Borowski wriggled out of trouble.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgainst a team like Riverside, you have to cash in on every opportunity that you have because you don\u2019t get many of them,\u201d Lakeland coach Larry Piccini said. \u201cHe (Borowski) mixed his pitches and kept us off-balance. We just couldn\u2019t come up with a timely hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Riverside took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second when it loaded the bases on walks to Graff and Cooper Borowski and a single by Caleb Sosa. Ben Kulikowski followed with an RBI fielder\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n
With one out in the top of the third, Dylan Loomis and Carson Stephens singled and Jackson Pochas walked to load the bases for the Chiefs. But Caeleb Borowski got a strikeout and a fielder\u2019s choice to end the threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt the pressure a little bit,\u201d Caeleb Borowski said. \u201cMy pitching coach came out and told me to calm down there and not rush forward to the plate. I locked in a little bit, got some strikes, got some outs. I really felt my curveball was moving very good today. I thought it was pretty sharp. I\u2019d mix in a fastball and two-seam every now and then and keep batters on their toes.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the bottom of the third, the Vikings capitalized on Caeleb Borowski\u2019s escape. Jose Sosa led off with a single. One out later, Bohenek singled. Graff had an RBI single to score Sosa and make it 2-0. Cooper Borowski then poked a double into the left-field corner to score both Bohenek and Graff to extend the margin to 4-0.<\/p>\n
J.P. Malak singled with one out in the top of the fourth for Lakeland and Ty Sokoloski walked. With two outs, Loomis walked and again the Chiefs had the bases loaded. But Caeleb Borowski got the next batter on the first pitch to foul out to catcher Graff.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a fastball,\u201d Caeleb Borowski said. \u201cThat was the nine-hitter and the first time up. He was a little late on it. So I figured I\u2019d keep up the speed and see what happens, try to get a groundout or something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Four consecutive two-out hits in the bottom of the fourth brought home two more runs for Riverside. Jose Sosa had a hustle double, took third on a wild pitch and scored on a single by Jason Posluszny. After Bohenek singled, Graff had his second RBI single of the game to give the Vikings a 6-0 cushion.<\/p>\n
\u201cLakeland\u2019s a tough team. It\u2019s tough to score on them. They don\u2019t make errors and they don\u2019t walk too many guys,\u201d Riverside coach Sean Hughes said. \u201cIt\u2019s really tough to piece three or four hits together. We really had to work for our runs today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caeleb Borowski allowed three hits in four innings with three walks and five strikeouts. He threw 72 pitches, 42 for strikes. Bohenek relieved him in the top of the fifth and protected that margin the rest of the way, giving up two hits and striking out three in three innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cCaeleb\u2019s a guy who can handle the pressure,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cIt\u2019s really his first year pitching at the varsity level. It\u2019s impressive how he stays composed, pounds the strike zone and trusts his defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe gameplan was for the two of them to throw today. But we were able to go an extra inning with Caeleb, which was great because Nick was up to bat and it would have been tough to get him warmed up. Getting out of bases loaded at any point is huge, but especially in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now that they are back in the final, the Vikings will try to avenge last year\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur guys came in locked in. We talked about what playoffs mean and the goals we have this season,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cWith (last year) still in our minds, we\u2019re going to try to get over it. We\u2019re still hungry. We want that district championship back. It\u2019s not going to be easy, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although its season ended, Lakeland made great strides this season with a young team. The Chiefs improved from seven wins last year to 15 this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s been eight years since a Lakeland team won 15 games,\u201d Piccini said. \u201cWe\u2019re definitely taking steps in the right direction from a program standpoint. We\u2019re only losing two seniors, so we went from a very young team the last two years to a very old team the next two years. Our young guys gained a lot of valuable experience these last two years. Most of the sophomores who played this year played as freshmen, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Class 1A<\/p>\n
At Susquehanna, the host Sabers rallied for two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to defeat Forest City, 5-4, in the District 2 Class 1A semifinals<\/a>.<\/p>\nCaeden Stone threw a complete-game seven-hitter with four runs (three earned), one walk and six strikeouts for No. 2 seed Susquehanna (6-12), which had only five hits, all singles.<\/p>\n
Forest City scored three times in the top of the seventh inning to take a 4-3 lead. Jeremy Slick and Jeremiah Burleigh each had two hits for the No. 3 seeded Foresters (2-14). Wyatt Reynolds tripled and knocked in two.<\/p>\n
Susquehanna advances to face No. 1 seed MMI Prep on Tuesday at a site and time to be determined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON \u2014 Since losing in last year\u2019s district final in heartbreaking fashion, Riverside was on a mission to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[305,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-199592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-high-school-sports","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}