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High school baseball player left at hotel during team trip

HARTSVILLE, S.C. — A local father is upset that his son was left behind during a baseball team trip to South Carolina.

Austin Dorogi is a senior pitcher for the Laurel Highlands’ varsity baseball team.

They recently traveled from Uniontown to Hartsville for an annual trip.

According to the teenager’s father, coaches left him at the hotel when he was late for the bus.

“Austin was a little late,” Aaron Dorogi said. “He had to run back to his room to get something he forgot. As he’s standing in the parking lot, the bus makes a U-turn in the lot. He’s standing there thinking they are going to stop and open the door so he can join his team for dinner. He watched the bus go by."

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Aaron Dorogi met with the Laurel Highlands’s baseball coach with questions about team policy.

“When you take a head count and someone is missing, is that what you do? You leave?” he said.

spoke with Superintendent Jesse Wallace. He said the bus was leaving and the team was going to eat dinner at the baseball field before the game. They waited, but the player was not on the bus. Wallace said one of the coaches called a chaperone, who picked Austin up.

Aaron Dorogi said he trusted the school to take care of his son, not another parent.

“It was intentionally done (as) punishment for being five minutes late. You want to punish him? Bench him. Don’t leave him in a strange town parking lot for being five minutes late,” he said.

Wallace said he spoke with the coaches who were on the bus and they said they didn't see Austin through the bus windows and that's why they didn't stop.