When you take a moment to really think about it, winning 700 games as a high school baseball coach seems like a virtually impossible task.
Considering the postponements and cancellations that plague teams all across Western Pennsylvania through the first month of every season, it’s a minor miracle if a team manages to get a full 20 games in during the regular season. Now imagine just being good enough to win 15 games in a season, including playoffs. Think you can handle the rigors of doing that year in and year out for 40 consecutive years, all while dealing with constant pressure and second-guessing from parents, administrators, fans, etc.?
If so, good luck, but you’re still going to need 100 more wins to get to 700. And if that sounds too difficult to fathom, well, there’s a reason no WPIAL baseball coach had ever done it before — at least not until Monday night.
In a 7-1 win at Shenango, Riverside coach Dan Oliastro became the WPIAL’s first and only member of the 700-win club, doing so in his 56th year at the helm. A self-described “young 80,” the 1961 Ellwood City graduate is the longest-tenured coach in any sport in WPIAL history, and he is also one of the most decorated. Oliastro was named the 2023 PUP Coach of the Year after guiding the Panthers to a perfect season while becoming the first team in WPIAL history to capture WPIAL and PIAA titles without losing a game.
“I never thought I’d go this long, to be honest,” Oliastro said. “But you take it one day at a time and just see what happens. We’ve been fairly consistent with how we run our program. Tradition, now, is helping.
“These kids don’t want to lose. They just don’t want to lose.”
Over the course of his remarkable career, Oliastro has won more state titles (five) than any coach in WPIAL history, and his six WPIAL titles are also tied for the most all time. Each of his previous state titles came in twos, with Riverside winning back-to-back PIAA championships in 2005-06 and 2011-12 — and there’s no reason to think the Panthers (5-0, 4-0) can’t continue that trend this year.
“We’ve got the kids who can do it,” Oliastro said. “We’re just trying to figure out who we want out there, how many pitchers we want out there. We’re getting there slowly.”
Off to a perfect start while rarely being challenged across its first five victories, Riverside now carries a 30-game winning streak into its non-section showdown with Hopewell at 4 p.m. Friday. Another tough matchup awaits at Union on Tuesday, along with a clash with Class 4A contender North Catholic on April 26.
As old-school as they come, Oliastro has never shied away from challenges when crafting his team’s non-section schedule, and don’t expect him to change that mentality now after 55-plus seasons of doing things the hard way.
“We like to get [Class] 4A teams in, if we can,” Oliastro said. “The teams in our league are good. But to make it a little more difficult for our kids so they can learn to handle it.”
Duke recruit Christian Lucarelli headlines a heralded core of eight returning starters for an absolutely loaded ballclub, and the Panthers seem to have all the pieces in place for a run at back-to-back WPIAL and PIAA crowns. But after doing this for more than half a century, Oliastro knows all too well the perils of looking too far ahead — especially this early in the season.
“You’ve got to make it small. You’ve got to think small,” Oliastro said. “The same thing I tell our kids. We always ask our kids, ‘What’s the best pitch in baseball?’ It’s a first-pitch strike. ‘What’s the most important pitch?’ It’s the next pitch. If you understand the mental part of the game, that really helps a lot.
“The problem is, when you think you know it all, you’re in trouble. I’m still learning with the kids.”
For now, the only game Oliastro and his players are focused on is “the next one” — after all, just like the next pitch, that’s always the most important one.
“I think they know who they are,” Oliastro said. “They know they’ve got a target on their back. They understand that. But this group, it doesn’t seem to affect them. They don’t buckle. They just go out and play their game.”
Serra Catholic scoring in bunches
Few programs in the WPIAL, if any, can match the standard of success Serra Catholic has established under longtime coach Brian Dzurenda.
Serra’s only regular-season loss to a WPIAL foe since 2021 came in a 2-1 defeat against section-rival Riverview on April 11 last year. That memory wasn’t lost on the Eagles, who erupted for 11 runs in the fifth inning on their way to a 21-4 road win against the previously unbeaten Raiders on Tuesday. Serra (7-1, 4-0) then walloped Riverview on Wednesday, 10-0, to sweep the season series, having now beaten the Raiders by a combined score of 43-4 in their past three meetings.
Junior Jake Holmes is batting .591 with five doubles, a triple and a team-leading 13 RBIs for the Eagles, while senior Zach Black is hitting .519 with five doubles, a triple and a team-high 14 hits. Senior Isiah Petty leads the team with 15 runs scored and touts a .458 batting average with a pair of doubles and eight RBIs.
Now in his 24th year at the helm, Dzurenda has guided his alma mater to 417 wins, four WPIAL titles and one state title while never experiencing a losing season under his watch. After becoming the eighth team to win a WPIAL title with an undefeated record in 2022, Serra made it back to last year’s WPIAL Class 2A final before falling to Seton LaSalle, 8-1.
Hempfield heating up
Primarily known as a “softball school” at this time of year, Hempfield’s baseball team is looking to change that narrative in a big way this season.
Led by a talented crop of seniors who still vividly remember their crushing defeat against North Allegheny in the 2021 WPIAL Class 6A final, the Spartans are looking like a serious contender to capture their first WPIAL baseball title to go with the school’s eight WPIAL championship banners in softball. And while Hempfield’s reigning champion softball team is off to another strong start in 2024, it’s the baseball team that remains undefeated while securing a stranglehold on the top spot in Class 6A Section 2.
After opening the season with a pair of impressive victories in a doubleheader at the Ripken Experience Tournament in Myrtle Beach, S.C., against Whitney Young, Ill., and Chardon, Ohio, the Spartans returned home and scored a lopsided 15-4 triumph against Blackhawk on March 27. The next day, Hempfield (9-0, 5-0) went on the road and handed Latrobe its first and only loss of the season, 9-6, before earning a three-game sweep against Central Catholic last week.
On Tuesday, the Spartans shut out Baldwin at home, 10-0, then picked up a 9-2 home win over the Highlanders on Wednesday before Thursday’s series finale was postponed due to weather. After belting home runs in back-to-back games against Baldwin, senior Carson Shuglie is off to a scorching-hot start while batting .360 with 3 doubles, 3 home runs, 11 RBIs and 11 runs scored.
Steve is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at srotstein@unionprogress.com.
