Penn-Trafford baseball fans are starting to sense a trend.
Complete games, timely hits and sound defense are becoming the norm as the No. 2-seeded Warriors go after another WPIAL championship.
Those things again carried the day as the Warriors moved into the WPIAL Class 5A quarterfinals.
Another efficient pitching outing from Dom Delio backlit a 4-1 victory over No. 15 Fox Chapel in a first-round game Tuesday at Plum.
“Dom was pitching ahead in counts and pitching to contact,” Warriors coach Lou Cortazzo said. “We came up with clutch hits when we needed them. That’s the recipe.”
Penn-Trafford (16-5) advances to play No. 10 South Fayette, an 8-2 upset winner over No. 7 Franklin Regional on Tuesday, in the quarterfinals next Tuesday at a time and site to be announced.
Fox Chapel’s season ends at 12-9.
Delio threw 89 pitches, striking out five and allowing six hits and no walks. He was disappointed he allowed a run — albeit an unearned one — in the playoff opener.
“Yeah, it sucks, but we got the win,” Delio said. “I came in confident, and that adds to the team’s confidence.”
He said he shelved his slider but worked a two- and four-seamer along with a curve.
Penn-Trafford erased the memory of last year’s first-round loss to Connellsville and paved the way for another potential semifinal run. The Warriors made the semis in 2023 and ’24, winning the WPIAL title in the latter season.
The Warriors scored three times in the first inning to give Delio an early cushion.
“That first inning put pressure on (Fox Chapel), and we didn’t look back,” Cortazzo said. “It’s tough to play from behind. We put pressure on them and made them have to chase.”
Penn-Trafford loaded the bases in the first against Foxes right-hander Drew Moyer to plate the three runs, two via a fielding error at second.
Austin Kovarik added an RBI single.
It was 4-0 in the third when Tanner DeStefano dashed home from third on a wild pitch.
“We should have been out of the first with only one run (scored),” Fox Chapel coach Jim Hastings said. “(Delio) was very efficient and threw a ton of strikes. We had more hits, but they had more timely hits.”
Delio was coming off a complete-game shutout of Franklin Regional in the final Section 1-5A series of the season, a series that clinched the section title for the Warriors. He was backed by a seamless defense that recorded 11 putouts.
This time, Delio forced nine flyouts.
Eli Nanci went 2 for 3, and Milan Fluhme and Domenic Jones had doubles for the Foxes.
Fox Chapel finally sent a run across against Delio in the sixth on a two-out single by Elias George. The run was unearned after an error on the Warriors to start the inning.
It was the only miscue by the defense.
“Dom minimized runners,” Cortazzo said. “Logan (Matrisch) made a great play in center field, and Dom had that pickoff (in the third). Those are the kind of plays you need to make.”
Fox Chapel was seeking its first playoff win since 2023.
“We played (Penn-Trafford) before in section, and they always have a really good program,” Hastings said. “We knew it would be a tough game.”
Fox Chapel left six on base and moved only one runner to third.
Penn-Trafford also beat the Foxes, 2-0, in the 2024 quarterfinals on the way to the title.
Left-hander Aiden Drotos, the Warriors’ Penn State commit, is the likely starter for the quarterfinal.