The Riverside Panthers are WPIAL Champions once again behind historic pitching perfection.
Senior Zach Hare tossed a perfect game Thursday evening to lead the Riverside Panthers to a 1-0 victory over Quaker Valley to claim its WPIAL Class 3A Championship.
The 15-strikeout, no hit, no walk performance capped a legendary postseason run by the Slippery Rock University commit.
Hare’s 2025 WPIAL playoffs stat sheet – four appearances, three wins, 24.1 innings pitched, ZERO hits, 42 strikeouts, and only five walks.
His gem Thursday is reported to be the first perfect game in modern WPIAL Championship Game history.
I’ve only been doing this for a few years, but I can’t imagine there have been any more memorable pitching performances in WPIAL history than what we just witnessed from Riverside’s Zach Hare.
82 pitches, 15 Ks and a perfecto in a 1-0 win for the WPIAL title. Take a bow, Zach: pic.twitter.com/3wNlvFjKDE
— Steve Rotstein (@SteveRotstein) May 29, 2025
On Thursday, much like last Friday, offense was hard to come by for the Panthers, but five days after Zach Hare tossed 7-innings of no-hit ball in his no-decision against South Park in the semifinals, the hard throwing righthander kept the opposing offense punchless.
Hare struck out eight of the first nine Quaker Valley batters and tossed an ‘immaculate inning’ in the sixth, striking out the side on nine pitches before Riverside scratched out the game’s lone run.
In the bottom half of the inning, Hare reached on an error before Christian Lucarelli reached on a fielder’s choice and advance to second on a single by Drake Fox. After a fly out, and with two outs, Jackson Barber knocked in Lucarelli with an RBI single.
Hare returned to the mound in the 7th inning and struck out the final two batters to cap his 82-pitch perfect game.
With its 7th WPIAL championship Riverside now joins Shaler, Allegheny and McKeesport in a tie for 2nd place all-time. Coach Dan Oliastro earns his record 7th championship as head coach.
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