Pine-Richland pitcher John Karr gave up an infield single and a long double to the first two batters last night in the PIAA Class AAA semifinal. No big deal.

"He always, always is a slow starter," Pine-Richland coach Kurt Wolfe said.

So what was a typical Karr start ended as a typical Karr finish.

Another win.

Karr, a senior right-hander, pitched a gem and lifted his record to 13-0 as Pine-Richland defeated Moon, 8-2, at Falconi Field in Washington. Karr is 26-1 in his career and he also contributed offensively against Moon with three hits. His teammates added 13.

The win sends Pine-Richland (21-3) into the championship game Saturday in Altoona against Sun Valley, a suburban Philadelphia school that defeated Northern York, 2-1, in the other semifinal yesterday.

Karr, a Penn State recruit, has been the winning pitcher in Pine-Richland's past four postseason games -- the WPIAL final and three PIAA games. This Karr's motor is revved to go again for the PIAA final.

"I'll be fine," Karr said. "I've pitched on three days rest before. As long as I ice my arm down when we leave here, I'll be fine."

After the first two hits of the game, Karr put Moon's bats on ice. He finished with a three-hitter and struck out 13, including six in a row during one stretch. After Moon tied the score, 1-1, in the first, Karr retired the next 17 in a row, 11 by strikeouts.

"He's pretty well put together. He's about 200 pounds," Wolfe said. "So sometimes he starts slow just because he has to get warmed up.

"But if you're going to get John Karr, you better get him in the first inning or so. I'll bet in the first inning, he was probably throwing in the low 80s. From then on, he was consistently in the mid to high 80s."

Karr believes there was a reason for his slow start.

"I was a little lax in the beginning," he said. "Then I found my curveball after the first inning. It was just a case of me getting my delivery back."

Moon scored its other run in the sixth inning when Bryce Goldbach walked and scored on Tom DeAngelis' double.

"He's a good pitcher, there's no question about it," Moon coach Dom Santeufemio said of Karr. "But I'm going to say this. The umpire treated him like he was Greg Maddux [of the Chicago Cubs]. He gave him the low strike, the high strike, the outside strike. He's good enough. He doesn't need all that help."

Karr was certainly helped by his team's offense. Center fielder Dan Koller was 3 for 4 while second baseman Brett Mollenhauer, catcher Dan Passione and freshman right fielder T.J. Kuban added two hits apiece.

Moon used three pitchers. Bryce Goldbach started, but didn't last three innings.

"They're a better team than us. We wouldn't have beaten them tonight, no matter what we did," Santeufemio said. "We needed our pitcher to come up big tonight. I figured if we were going to win, it would have to be by a 2-1 or 3-2 score. But when you give a team 16 hits, you're not going to win many games."

The Rams scored three runs in the second to take control of the game. With runners on second and third, Koller hit a fly ball to right that was dropped by Moon's Dave Compo, allowing a runner to score. Karr followed with a two-run double down the left-field line.

Pine-Richland added another run in the third and three more in the top of the seventh.

"We've had good pitching and pretty good defense all year," Wolfe said. "And then when we hit, we're a pretty good team."