It was simple. All La Salle’s baseball team had to do was win one game against St. Joe’s to secure a spot in the 2021 Atlantic 10 Conference tournament.

Just one win would put off the inevitable a little longer: the impending end of the Explorers’ baseball program.

But it wasn’t that easy. The Explorers entered the game May 22, 2021, after three straight losses to the Hawks. This was their final chance.

Down five runs in the sixth inning with more than their season on the line, La Salle handed the ball to graduate student reliever Colin Yablonski at St. Joe’s Smithson Field.

With no runs, no hits, no walks and three strikeouts in three innings, Yablonski did his job for the Explorers. But it still wasn’t enough. St. Joe’s won, 5-2, taking with them any hopes the La Salle players had of playing at least one more game as a team.

Three years later, Feb. 16, 2024, the Hawks opened their season against Canisius. They took a three-run lead into the ninth inning but needed three pitchers to get out of the inning with the score tied. Yablonski got the last out of the inning and wound up with the win when St. Joe’s scored in the bottom of the ninth.

Yablonski, who is from Lancaster, went from La Salle to Coastal Carolina, then, two years later, transferred to St. Joe’s for his final year of eligibility. The graduate student credited his new teammates with helping make the transition smooth, while time eroded any grudges from Yablonski’s time as an Explorer.

“It was a crosstown rivalry. We obviously didn’t like St. Joe’s back then, but sometimes the script flips and you see yourself on the other side,” Yablonski said. “Now I’m here at St. Joe’s and I’m enjoying every minute of it.”

His former La Salle teammates, like first baseman Bubba Weigel, were not as easily convinced.

“When he told me he was going there, I was like, ‘Are you sure?’” said Weigel, who went on to end his playing career with the Front Royal (Virginia) Cardinals in a collegiate summer league in 2021.

But after learning Yablonski’s reason for transferring and seeing how easy the fit was, Weigel was persuaded.

“He added how much fun he had at La Salle and how St. Joe’s is kind of the closest thing to that,” Weigel said. “Just bringing that whole, I guess you can call it a ‘Philly mentality,’ back to him, I think he liked that idea about it.”

St. Joe’s coach Fritz Hamburg remembers the rivalry well, as the teams faced off eight times that season in 2021.

“It was heated between the two teams,” Hamburg said. “It was a really difficult situation, what [La Salle] went through, but you certainly give all of them a lot of credit for sticking together and fighting the way they did.”

And fight they did — both to save their program but also with one notable bench-clearing brawl at the end of their 4-3 loss to the Hawks May 8, 2021.

“That’s just wanting to win a baseball game in my eyes,” Weigel said. “Especially college baseball, everybody plays with a lot of passion. So going back to us being neighbors and that big rivalry, that was pretty much bound to happen. I think we were all kind of expecting it.”

Hamburg believes Yablonski’s experience at La Salle is “something he’ll take with him forever,” but it’s also something that Hamburg can recall easily, especially Yablonski’s slider.

“I remember Colin in the final year there at La Salle and he had a great year,” Hamburg said. “We were certainly interested in trying to get him to come over here at that time when La Salle’s program was dropped.”

Instead, Yablonski landed at Coastal Carolina for two years. When he made the decision to transfer, he was searching for something “pretty similar to La Salle”

“I loved the group and La Salle, so I figured why not come back to Philly and run it back for one last year?” said Yablonski.

Hamburg said Yablonski is a pitcher the Hawks can rely on, one who has meshed well with his new teammates. So far, he is 3-3 with a 3.91 ERA in 12 appearances.

“We swung and missed the first time. We got him the second time,” Hamburg said. “I’m really happy he’s here. He’s a great fit for our culture and our group and I’m glad he felt the same about us.”

The A-10 experience he gained at La Salle is something Yablonski expects to help him during the Hawks’ conference slate.

“It definitely is a comfort thing because I’ve been here before in the A-10 and I know what to expect,” Yablonski said. “It’s definitely good to come out here and compete against the same teams again.”

Yablonski will graduate in May, but some of his teammates will get the chance to face the Explorers in the future: La Salle announced last week that it plans to reinstate its baseball program.

“I think it’s good, I think the school needs baseball and I think it’d be interesting to watch them play and see how they can do. 

“It’s a process. It’s definitely going to take a little bit of time to get everything rolling in and get the ball moving there, but I think they’ll do a good job with it. I think they’ll pick up right where they left off,” Yablonski said.

An earlier version of this article was first published by the Philadelphia Inquirer April 24 as part of the Inquirer’s college correspondent program.