Hempfield was thinking about brooms.
MJ Maruschak had treadmills on his mind.
Maruschak, Canon-McMillan’s senior pitcher, was looking forward to going home and watching the livestream of Thursday’s game while he ran on a treadmill. It’s his postgame custom.
“Win or lose I do it,” he said. “I’ll pull up the game and run two or three miles and go over what I did. It helps me work on my game.”
There wasn’t much to critique in the third game of his team’s Section 2-6A series against Hempfield.
The Big Macs avoided a sweep with a 6-0 victory behind a svelte complete game from their dependable right-hander.
Maruschak, a Winthrop commit, improved to 5-0 as he allowed four hits, struck out four and did not issue a walk on just 82 pitches for first-place Canon-McMillan (13-4, 8-4), which completed section play and will await the rest of the teams to finish to determine if it gets a section title.
Maruschak set down 15 of the final 16 batters, making it a quiet day at the plate for Hempfield (7-9, 4-5), which clinched a playoff spot with Woodland Hills’ loss to Mt. Lebanon.
The Spartans had won three in a row.
Canon-McMillan, which fell 6-3 and 12-9 to the Spartans earlier in the series, had two three-run innings to support Maruschak.
“This was his most efficient outing of the year,” Big Macs coach Brendon Steele said of his pitcher. “We played defense behind him, and he hit his spots. “(Hempfield) is a great hitting team. They are tough outs.”
Maruschak helped his cause with a two-run double — one of five doubles for Canon-McMillan (nine hits) — and senior Dom Patragas and junior Brayden Radue each had two hits and an RBI in the win.
“Hopefully this helps build come character in (losing) 4 of 5,” Steele said. “We’re still not there yet, but the bats came around today.”
When Hempfield did threaten, albeit mildly, Maruschak had a keen eye on the base paths. He picked off two runners in the bottom of the second to wipe out a leadoff single by senior Owen Shuglie and another from senior Chase Damaska.
Hempfield managed to get only two runners to second, one via a stolen base in the first.
“Both teams made a couple mistakes on the bases,” Hempfield coach Tim Buzzard said. “The reality is, we didn’t pose enough of a threat offensively. This is the first time all season we didn’t have long at-bats. (Maruschak) was so locked in on the strike zone. We didn’t make enough contact to get him out of rhythm.”
The Big Macs scored three times in the third with two outs, courtesy of three straight doubles by junior Alex Eslep, Maruschak and Patragas, the last one on a rope down the right chalk line.
“It feels good to help out the team,” Maruschak said of his double. “I know my teammates have my back. We haven’t played our best yet. In two weeks, we want to be at our best and not let off the gas.”
In the sixth, the Big Macs got a run-starting single by Patragas and took advantage of an error to set up an RBI double to left center by Radue.
That chased Hempfield senior starting pitcher Alex Waitkius, who was replaced by senior Dane Willis.
But the next batter, senior Blake Simmons, slapped a two-run single — again past first base — to make it 6-0.
“We work on hanging back when its loaded,” Steele said of his team’s at-bats. “We went the opposite way a few times. We’re improving on situational hitting. It feels good to end conference play with a win.”
Senior Cayden Laskosky had a double off the fence for the Big Macs.
Senior Gavin Dantry made a highlight catch for the Big Macs in right to end the sixth, and both teams went 1-2-3 in the seventh.
“We have been playing good ball these last few weeks,” Buzzard said. “We’re locked in and playing well. We’ll try to continue that.”