First place in Section 2-5A baseball was at stake as Bethel Park hosted South Fayette on Tuesday on a day better fit for a battle between the two schools in a Class 5A Allegheny Six Conference football contest.
With steady winds making it feel like the temperatures were in the mid-30s throughout the game, the Black Hawks rallied to defeat the Lions in a defensive struggle, 4-1.
“Two really good teams on a cold day like this, trying to find their way offensively against two pitchers who were doing a great job out there,” Bethel Park coach Patrick Zehnder said. “Their guy was pounding the zone, able to throw multiple pitches for strikes, while we had a stubborn approach at the beginning and finally bought in to what we needed to do.”
The two starting pitchers definitely had the advantage early on with seniors Ryan Speer for South Fayette and Matthew Hughes of Bethel Park keeping their opponents off the scoreboard for the first five innings.
The Lions had two chances to score with the bases loaded —first in the third inning on a single and two walks, then in the fifth inning on an error, a walk and an infield single — but they could not come up with a big two-out hit.
“(Hughes) has pitched our two coldest games this season, both in the 30s,” Zehnder said. “He’s really tough to hit out there, and when he has multiple pitches that he’s able to locate for strikes and keep people off balance, he’s one of the better pitchers in the area.”
Hughes pitched 4⅔ innings, allowing no runs on only one hit with four walks, a hit batter and seven strikeouts in a no decision for the left-hander.
Caden Stokes led off the bottom of the first inning for the Black Hawks with a double; however, Speer then went into shutdown mode, allowing only a single and double by BP No. 9 hitter Owen Turoski through five innings.
The scoreless tie was finally snapped in the top of the sixth inning when R.J. Borgesi reached on an infield single for South Fayette, Colt Cloherty moved him to second base on a beautiful sacrifice bunt, and pinch-hitter Jacob Bostian smacked an RBI single.
The Lions’ lead was short lived, though, as Bethel Park answered with a crooked number in the bottom of the sixth inning.
With one out, Mike Bruckner singled, stole second and advanced to third base when he was set to tag on a deep fly ball to right by Eric Miehl that went for a double.
Then the key play of the game came when Chase White hit a ground ball to South Fayette shortstop Trey Skeen, who fired home in an effort to preserve the lead, but Bruckner slid head first on a bang-bang play at the plate and was ruled safe.
“Catcher never tagged me,” Bruckner said afterward.
“Skeen at short made the best play he possibly could have on that,” Zehnder added. “It was a great throw and a great slide. That was just a great baseball play that went our way because (Bruckner) didn’t hesitate.”
Bethel Park was not done.
Brayden Bruckner hit a sacrifice fly to score courtesy runner Sam Knauff with the go-ahead run and pinch hitter Michael Hladio followed with a double to score White to make it 3-1.
South Fayette coach Marc “Bubba” Snyder brought in reliever Joey Kreuer, who yielded a run-scoring single by Tyler Stewart that brought home pinch-runner Grayson Wedoski with the final run.
“It’s one thing to be able to tie it up, but this South Fayette team is so good and well coached that they can jump right back at you,” Zehnder said. “So to be able to add on a couple more after that was really important.”
Nick Rillo came in and retired the Lions in order in the top of the seventh inning to secure victory for BP and register a save.
Speer pitched well for the Lions, throwing 5⅔ innings, allowing four earned runs on six hits with one walk and six strikeouts against a Black Hawks offense that was averaging more than eight runs a game in four section contests this spring.
South Fayette fell into a tie for second place in Section 2-5A with a 3-2 record. The Lions saw their three-game winning streak end as they fell to 6-3 overall.
Tyler Stewart was the winning pitcher in relief for BP. He allowed one earned run on three hits with one strikeout in 1⅓ innings.
Bethel Park improved to 4-1 in the section and 7-1 overall.
The teams meet again Wednesday afternoon at South Fayette.