St. Aloysius’ outstanding baseball season came to a swift and disappointing end in the playoffs.

Central Private scored in every inning except the second, blew the game open with five runs in the fifth inning, and beat St. Al 12-2 on Thursday in Game 2 of their MAIS Class AAA playoff series.

Central Private (19-10) swept the best-of-three series and advanced to face defending Class AAA champion Columbia Academy in the second round.

St. Al (17-4) lost back-to-back games for the only time this season. It started the year with 14 victories in a row, then went 3-4 down the stretch.

The Flashes struck first in Game 2, scoring a pair of runs in the top of the first inning on a single by Tyler Breithaupt. After that, the game belonged to Central Private.

Gabe Spedale hit a solo home run in the bottom of the first, and the Rebels scored two more in the third to take the lead for good. Then they started pouring it on.

Michael Friedman hit a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning to make it 5-2, and Spedale had a two-RBI single during the big fifth inning that put the game out of reach.
A two-run single in the bottom of the sixth by Colby Erwin made it 12-2 and ended the game via the 10-run mercy rule.

Spedale finished 2-for-4 with three RBIs for Central Private, Trevor Tortorich also had two hits and an RBI, and Beau Powers scored three runs.

Spedale also pitched 5 1/3 innings. Spedale gave up seven hits and four walks, but struck out six and only allowed the two runs. St. Al left 12 runners on base.

Wes Warnock was 2-for-2 with a run scored for St. Al, and James Trichell went 2-for-3 with a double.

Each team had seven hits, but St. Al committed four errors that led to five unearned runs.