Fox Chapel lefty Jeremy Haigh worked fast, threw strikes and sometimes bopped along to Plum’s walkup songs.
There was no doubt Haigh had found his groove. The junior needed fewer than 80 pitches to finish off a dominant one-hitter Monday afternoon as Fox Chapel strengthened its section title hopes with a 3-0 win over host Plum.
The only batter to reach base against Haigh came on a bunt single that rolled slowly up the third-base line.
"I was getting into my groove on the mound, letting it go and going along with the music,” said Haigh, who responded to the infield hit by retiring the final 14 batters in order.
Haigh also drove in Fox Chapel’s first run, and his courtesy runner accounted for another run.
"He was great,” Plum coach Carl Vollmer said. "What are you going to do? He throws three pitches for strikes. We knew that coming into it. We saw it last year when he carved us up.”
The teams complete their two-game series at 4 p.m. Tuesday at Fox Chapel.
Section 1-5A ended the day with a first-place tie between Fox Chapel (14-4, 9-2) and Penn-Trafford, which lost to Franklin Regional, 6-2. Teams have only one section game remaining, but the section title race is far from decided with Plum (11-7, 8-3) and Franklin Regional one game back.
Depending on Tuesday’s outcomes, Fox Chapel or Penn-Trafford could win the section title outright. Or, it’s possible all four teams finish tied for first. Penn-Trafford visits Franklin Regional.
Vollmer said he liked Plum’s chances of bouncing back in the rematch, in part because Haigh won’t be available to pitch Tuesday.
"He’s not going to be on the mound, so, of course, we have a chance,” Vollmer said. "We have a good chance. I like our team. I like the way we battle. But he beat us today.”
Haigh had only two strikeouts yet silenced Plum’s lineup by relying on an error-free defense behind him. In fact, most of the action stayed on the infield. Only four Plum batters hit a ball that reached an outfielder.
"I came in knowing that they were going to want to break out of the gate early,” Haigh said. "They’re going to want to swing a lot, so I knew if I pitched to contact … it was going to work all game.”
Fox Chapel coach Jimmy Hastings said this was Haigh’s best performance of the year.
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"He was as good as I’ve seen him,” Hastings said. "I don’t care who we were playing, I don’t think it was going to be a good result for the other team. He was dominant.”
Fox Chapel didn’t need much offense.
The Foxes had 15 batters reach base but leaned on some small-ball tactics to scrape out its three runs. They scored a run in the first inning and added two more in the fifth.
They managed six singles and a double against Plum starter Eric Streussnig, who nearly pitched a complete game himself. The right-handed senior struck out four, walked three and hit two batters in 6 2/3 innings.
In the first, Fox Chapel’s Antonio LeDonne hit a leadoff single, reached second on a wild pitch and moved to third on a sacrifice bunt. The junior scored on an RBI groundout by Haigh to lead 1-0.
In the fifth, Fox Chapel scored twice more with some slick baserunning. Joseph Geller drew a two-out walk, and Haigh singled to center. Geller ran to second then stealthily took third when Plum’s defense believed the play was over.
Geller later stole home when Haigh’s courtesy runner, junior William Adams, drew a pickoff throw to second base. Adams scored on an RBI single by senior Mitchell Epstein to lead 3-0.
"We made a couple of defensive mistakes, but it didn’t matter,” Vollmer said. "Like I just told our guys, we had a runner on second base only one time. Give (Haigh) a ton of credit. There’s not a whole lot more to say.”
Haigh mixes four pitches: a fastball, curveball, slider and changeup. He said command of his off-speed pitches wasn’t sharp at the start, but he stuck with them.
"As the game went on, I found each pitch inning after inning,” he said. "Everything was working today by the end.”
The pitcher/outfielder was limited in the past week while he recovered from a mild hamstring injury. The leg was feeling better Monday, Haigh said, but he was feeling "a little frustrated” in warm-ups because his pitches weren’t the sharpest.
"I knew I had to work through that and not let it bother me,” he said. "Once I got into my groove and stopped thinking and I just let it happen, everything fell into place.”
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Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.
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