Beaver Falls Tigers Baseball 1975

WPIAL CHAMPIONS
Section 5 Champions
22-5 Overall Record, 10-4 Section

Excerpt from Yearbook-  The '75 Tiger baseball team was the one to be reckoned with as it walked away with the Section V honors and the WPIAL Championship.  The Tigers lost the first exhibition game to Center, 8-3, and then rolled with eight straight wins. To start the regular season, the Fighting Tigers won the first two games before dropping two straight to Hopewell and defending champs, Beaver. At that point, they were 2-2 and behind leader Beaver.  For the first ten games the team had a 7-3 record.  The season came down to the final game against Ellwood City where the Tigers proved themselves the tougher team and defeated the Wolverines 1-0.

The first round playoff game was played at Center against New Wilmington where Beaver Falls overpowered them 9-1.  The quarterfinals moved to Freeport.  There the Tiger Nine defeated Kittaninning 3-0.  In the semifinals, also held at Freeport, BF shutout Gateway 2-0.  With one game between being champions or the hard luck guys, the Tigers traveled to Three Rivers to take on the California Trojans. Through nine innings Frank Miloszewski fired a four hit shutout before giving way to Rich Manzetti.  In the thirteenth inning of play and with two out and Dave Hornacek at third and Nick Nardone on first base, Rick Chiappetta was at bat.  On a 2-2 count, the pitcher threw a wild pitch, letting Hornacek score from third base.  With that play, Beaver Falls won its first WPIAL Championship since 1969. 

The Tigers were led by senior pitchers Frank "Milo" Miloszewski and Rich Manzetti, and seniors, Nick Nardone, Kevin Hogue, Tom Wooley, and Bill Walker.  The "big bats" were Dave Hornacek and "Milo".  Both Milo and Manzetti were ranked as the top pitchers with 10-1 and 8-3 records respectively. Milo was selected as the top batter for the Tigers with a .400 batting average.  For their annual sportsmanship award, the Tigers chose Ralph Borkovich.