No. 1 Wheeling Central survives with shutout of Bishop Donahue

WHEELING, W.Va. — Class A No. 1 Wheeling Central completed its sectional comeback on Wednesday night, beating No. 9 Bishop Donahue 4-0 in a winner-take-all sectional championship game.

“That’s a tough team,” said Wheeling Central coach Bo McConnaughy. “We scrambled for some runs and that’s a good win for us. Bob (Kleeh) does a great job with Bishop Donahue. I want to take my hat off to them, they played us tough and it’s a shame someone had to come out a loser.”

It was the second win this week for the Maroon Knights (25-6) over Bishop Donahue (16-11) after the Bishops won the first sectional matchup a week ago. Wheeling Central forced Wednesday’s deciding game with a 5-3 win on Monday.

“We knew after we lost that our backs were to the wall and there was no tomorrow,” McConnaughy said. “We came out and played like that. We had to play every inning like it was the last inning we were ever going to play – I think we gave that effort.”

Tyler Riedel was in full control Wednesday for the Maroon Knights, picking up the complete game win, while striking out seven, giving up just three hits and surrendering only one walk.

It’s a Wheeling Central team that has been motivated all season to play for former coach Jamey Conlin who passed away last year following a battle with cancer.

“It’s a great experience to perform well in sectionals again and make it to regionals,” Riedel said. “Hopefully we can make another trip down state because I think we owe that to Coach Conlin, to make him proud.

“We are coming back with a vengeance and with a ton of fire for Coach Conlin,” Riedel continued. “Our last promise to him was that we were going to get him a state championship. We lost that (title game) last year. We’re looking to fulfill it this year.”

Daevon Stradwuck went 2-for-3 with a run scored in the win, while Chris Costain added a two-RBI single.

Harrison Nick collected two of Bishop Donahue’s three hits in the loss.

Wheeling Central moves on to face No. 7 Tyler Consolidated (20-4) in a best of three regional series next week.





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