Shaler High School athletic director Clint Rauscher was still basking in the afterglow June 16, the day after the Titans’ dramatic rally to defeat Strath Haven 9-8 in eight innings.

The comeback earned Shaler the PIAA Class 5A baseball championship in the game at Penn State.

While the Titans girls softball and boys volleyball teams both lost in the finals, Shaler still has plenty to celebrate. According to Rauscher, no other high school had ever had three teams in the finals in the same season in PIAA history. Understandably, he’s taking great pride in the unprecedented nature of his teams’ accomplishments.

“All of our programs have home-grown kids. Their fathers played for Shaler. We have great kids. It’s a cultural thing,” Rauscher said. “We’ve built good foundational elementary programs and middle school programs and (we have) long term coaches and we’re just starting to reap the work that all of those coaches and programs have put in. All three of these teams are relatively young and mostly playing underclassmen and it’s just out of this world to get these kinds of results.”

Without putting too much pressure on anyone, Rauscher feels there’s a good chance Shaler can sustain its success in the coming years. But for now he’s happy to savor the joys of a spring that produced memories to last a lifetime.

“It’s amazing to see all the Facebook and Twitter (messages),” he said. “It’s amazing to see how Shaler has been able to enjoy this.”

Rauscher said he was also inspired to see a large turnout of Shaler supporters in State College for the championship games.

“There were two to three hundred (Titans) fans at the (baseball championship game). It’s such a point of pride for Shaler. For an afternoon game in the middle of the week, I thought that was pretty good. The volleyball team had two full charter buses of people that came to watch.

“I couldn’t be more pleased, pleased for myself, pleased for the coaches. High school coaching now is harder than it’s ever been. The coaches have persevered through the hard times. I couldn’t be more happy for them because it’s tough. Now they’re seeing something at the end of the rainbow. It’s just awesome.”

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