The Hazleton Area baseball coach had just watched a group of his seniors come through for a critical 6-4 win over Coughlin on Thursday at Antinozzi Field. After the game it was time to give them their sendoff.

“I’ll tell you what, this senior class is a special class,” Cara said. “I mean, they’ve been with me forever. Right now I don’t want to even go through the senior ceremony, to be honest with you.

“They played, they contributed, they worked hard. … Certainly our record doesn’t indicate what we’re capable of, but we’re playing good baseball right now.”

And that hard work has kept the Cougars (8-6) in the hunt for a division title and possibly another home game. They moved ahead of Coughlin with the win and into a first-place tie with Pittston Area in Division I East with one game to play.

Both Pittston Area and Hazleton Area will be at Hollenback Park on Saturday. The Patriots play their season finale against Holy Redeemer at noon. Then at 4 p.m., the Cougars will finish a game they started with the Royals on Wednesday with the score tied 7-7 at the start of the 10th inning.

If both squads remain tied after Saturday, they will have a special playoff game for the division crown on either Sunday or Monday, with the time and site to be determined.

To reach that point, however, the Cougars first needed a strong effort against Coughlin. And four seniors in particular carried the day.

Tyler Rubasky and Carl Cara both hit a pair of RBI singles, one apiece in the third and fourth innings.

Brady Wolfe had an inspiring at-bat to lead-off the bottom of the fourth, fouling off a series of balls before sending the 10th pitch he saw well over the fence in right field to tie the game at 3-3.

Anthony Zaloga pitched a complete game, holding on through 120 pitches. He finished with six strikeouts and overcame a leadoff single in the seventh with three straight outs to close the deal.

“He wanted the ball the last inning,” Gino Cara said. “It’s a senior day game … and he said, ‘I’ve got three more outs.’ And I said, ‘You’ve got it.’ ”

Coughlin had taken a 3-2 lead in the top of the fourth after Dave Marriggi lined a two-run single with two strikes on him and two outs. But Wolfe answered with his solo shot in the home half of the frame before Rubasky and Carl Cara grabbed the lead right back.

The Crusaders, meanwhile, had a few close calls on the bases go against them and a few miscues they’d like to have back.

“We played dumb baseball,” Coughlin coach Moe Rodzinak said. “Kids don’t know how to run the bases. We got a couple tough calls. That’s just the way it went today.”

Joe Parsnik and Dom Gulius each had a pair of hits for the Crusaders, who finished the regular season at 8-7.

Ace Josh Featherman suffered his only loss in league play, striking out three in four innings of work.

“Josh didn’t have his best stuff today,” Rodzinak said. “When his curveball’s on, it’s almost unhittable. It was hanging today. But even without his best stuff, we were still in the game with them. … As bad as things went we still had a chance. We still had our chances.

“We just couldn’t get that hit when we needed it.”

For the first time in school history, Hazleton Area’s scarlet numbers and lettering were swapped out for pink for Thursday’s game. The special uniforms were worn for Mother’s Day and for breast cancer awareness.

Carol Rubasky, mother of senior catcher Tyler, is a breast cancer survivor and got to throw out the first pitch to her son.

“I think it’s great that the school and the school district allowed us to do that, and it turned out to be a really good thing,” Gino Cara said.

HR – Wolfe