On Monday, Peters Township held a ribbon cutting ceremony to officially name the renovated Peterswood Park baseball field after longtime Indians baseball coach and school district athletic director Joe Maize.
“When I found out they were doing this, I was speechless,” Maize said. “You know me; that is not easy to do.”
While the game took two days to complete because of weather, the results left the old coach smiling.
Peters Township leaned heavily on pitching and defense to edge South Fayette in a Section 2-5A battle, 2-1.
Before the game was suspended Monday night, South Fayette scored its only run in the top of the second inning when with two outs, Brayden Harris doubled, went to third on a single by Owen Keener and scored following back-to-back walks to Anthony Diodata and Bo Stover.
The Lions’ lead didn’t last long as first baseman Brody Takacs led off the bottom of the second inning with a solo home run into the parking lot beyond the left-center field fence. It was the junior’s second homer of the season.
Lightning delayed the game in the middle of the third inning and with a pending storm on its way, the decision was made to suspend the game until Tuesday.
“I told the kids before the game that look at all this crazy weather we’ve been dealing with in the past 10 days with different weather delays, and it doesn’t always look pretty, and it didn’t again,” Peters Township coach Rocky Plassio said. “It’s about toughness and focus when you show up for a game, and it’s the bottom of the third inning.”
Showing those traits, the Indians scored the winning run in the bottom of the third.
Zach Miner led off with a walk and when Jackson Stocker hit a ground ball to third base, the throw to second was off the mark and courtesy runner Brad Bucci was safe.
With two outs, a low pitch slightly rolled away from South Fayette catcher Chaz Kasko, who quickly retrieved the ball and with the two runners trying to move up a base, decided to throw to second base to get the trailing runner. The throw hit Stocker in the arm and deflected into center field, allowing Bucci to score from second base on a wild pitch and throwing error.
“To score the one run the way we did with the ball hitting off our kid, sometimes it takes ugliness to find ways to win baseball game,” Plassio said. “If you are doing that, it’s still better than being on the opposite end of it.”
Both teams needed two pitchers in the game, one Monday and the other to close out the game Tuesday.
For Peters Township, junior Jack Stewart started and pitched three innings, allowing one earned run on three hits with three walks and a strikeout.
Junior David Oberschelp pitched four innings with no runs, three hits, one walk and three Ks for the win.
“Jack Stewart has been terrific for us all year,” Plassio said. “Hopefully, he could have gone further (Monday), but nonetheless, he did his job.
“David Oberschelp is a young man that has dealt with a lot of adversity, and he’s really coming into his own. Last year he struggled, but this season, he has stepped up in his role as our third baseman and one of our leading hitters, and he’s been terrific as our No. 3 pitcher.”
South Fayette also had two strong performances on the mound with starter Conner Rynn allowing one run on one hit with a walk and three strikeouts while Trey Skeen was the tough-luck loser, yielding an unearned run on one hit with two walks and four Ks in four innings of work.
“Anytime your team loses, you aren’t happy,” South Fayette coach Ken Morgan said. “It’s even more difficult to swallow when your pitching staff throws a two-hitter over two days. Many times on all levels, the team that comes out on top executes the best. That wasn’t us.”
Peters Township improves to 7-4 and will, at worst, share second place in the section behind Bethel Park. The Indians have now won three straight and improve to 12-6 for the season as they look to build their resume for seeding purposes.
“We know what their situation was for them, but we are playing for ourselves,” Plassio said. “We have an opportunity to continue to find ways to get better, and I think if you are winning baseball games at the right time of the year, hopefully that will pay dividends for you.”
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The Lions fall to 5-6 in the section and 9-8 overall heading into the second game of their section series when they host Peters Township on Wednesday afternoon.
South Fayette goes into its final section game tied for fourth place with Trinity (5-6), a half-game behind third-place Upper St. Clair (5-5). However, the Lions lose the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Hillers if it comes to that.
“Obviously (Wednesday) is a massive game for our program,” Morgan said. “We need to continue to pitch well and execute offensively. As Coach (Clint) Hurdle used to say, we don’t have time to dwell on this game. Shower well because we need to be at our best.”