Trib HSSN diamond team of the week – Butler Golden Tornado baseball
Coach – Josh Forbes (sixth year)
Record – Butler won the Section 1-6A championship with a 10-2 record, two games in front of runner-up North Allegheny. The Golden Tornado are 19-3 overall this season.
#Earned – These are exciting times for Butler baseball fans, but the earth is spinning off its axis right now for Golden Tornado coach Josh Forbes.
His life is filled with great happiness and joy – oh yeah, plus he’s thrilled for his baseball team as well.
Two days after winning a WPIAL semifinal baseball game, his wife Holly gave birth to their first child and future shortstop.
While it may be another 15 years before he hits the high school diamonds, his father is leading the way in one of the most successful baseball season in decades for Butler.
The Class 6A storm brewing in the north is usually caused by North Allegheny or 2025 champion Seneca Valley, but the Golden Tornado blew away the competition in winning the Section 1-6A crown by two games and ending the regular season with 10 straight wins.
Nobody could match the pitching and defense Butler put up this spring with a WPIAL-best 1.8 runs per game allowed.
The WPIAL Class 6A baseball playoffs finally got underway with the quarterfinals last Monday with 12 days between the regular season finale and the postseason opener.
Top-seeded Butler jumped out to an early lead over No. 8 Mt. Lebanon with two runs in the bottom of the first inning.
The Blue Devils tied the game in the top of the fourth inning and made life nervous for a Butler team that lost in extra inning to Norwin in the 2025 quarterfinals.
This time, extra innings were kind to the Golden Tornado as they plated a run in the bottom of the eighth to escape with the win, 3-2.
The first inning was bigger for Butler in the semifinals.
After spotting Norwin an early one-run lead, the Golden Tornado exploded for two home runs in a five-run bottom of the first.
Butler added on with a run in the third and three more in the fourth inning, and then held on to eliminate the Knights, 9-3.
The victory advances Butler to its first WPIAL baseball championship game in 34 years.
Golden Tornado pitching coach Matt Clement was on the team that lost to Sean Casey and Upper St. Clair in the 1992 Class 3A finals, 7-2.
Standout performers – Butler only managed four hits against Mt. Lebanon in the district quarterfinals, but it managed to scratch across three runs and win in eight innings.
Junior Ryan Rattigan had a hit and drove in a run and sophomore Karsten Lenyk picked up the game-winning RBI with a bases-loaded walk.
In the semifinals Thursday against Norwin, the Golden Tornado erased a Knights’ top-of-the-first home run with a couple of bombs of their own in the bottom of the inning.
Senior Boden Lenyk , a University of South Carolina-Aiken commit, smacked the first pitch in the bottom of the first inning over the center field fence at North Hills.
Following a walk to senior Mavrik Clement, a Pitt commit, and junior Trent Best, Penn State-bound Nolan Stefaniak nearly hit one to Happy Valley with a three-run shot.
Before the inning ended, senior Blake Scott doubled and scored on an RBI single by Karsten Lenyk.
Junior Jake Szebalskie scored on a Boden Lenyk single in the third inning.
The scoring concluded for Butler in the fourth on runs scored by Best, Stefaniak and Rattigan, driven home by Rattigan (two RBIs) and junior Nash Cuffman.
Both wins went to senior West Virginia commit Kyle Casteel, who came in to relieve Stefaniak on Monday and pitched the eighth inning, and then he went the distance with a complete game with 14 Ks against Norwin on Thursday.
2026 Trib HSSN Diamond Teams of the Week:
Week 7 – Riverside Panthers softball
Week 6 – Indiana Little Indians baseball
Week 5 – Elizabeth Forward Warriors baseball
Week 4 – Thomas Jefferson Jaguars softball
Week 3 – Thomas Jefferson Jaguars baseball
Week 2 – North Allegheny Tigers softball
Week 1 – Eden Christian Academy Warriors baseball