Game features plenty of noise
Butler snags slugfest over Fox Chapel

By Mike Kilroy

Eagle Staff Writer

If you're a fan of offense, you would've been a fan of the Butler-Fox Chapel baseball game Monday night at Pullman Park.
If you enjoy extra-base hits, wild pitches, walks and Darwinism, you would've enjoyed this contest, too.
Butler won the survival of the fittest, scoring at least one run in every inning but the bottom of the seventh, in a 15-11 victory over the Foxes.
"A win is a win," said Butler coach Dave Florie. "That's the bottom line."
This one came with lots of crooked numbers. The two teams combined for 29 hits, including five doubles and five triples. The two teams also combined to walk 11 batters.
Butler drew eight walks against three Fox Chapel pitchers, who had a propensity for throwing bounce passes to the catcher.
"That was the key, with their inability to throw a lot of strikes," Florie said.
"The kids did show a lot of discipline. Sometimes, they want to go up there and see the ball fly, hack away, and they don't know the importance of walks."
Three of those walks became runs.
Eight Fox Chapel wild pitches had a lot to do with that, as well as Butler's penchant for playing small ball as the Golden Tornado laid down five sacrifice bunts.
It's the Florie Way.
"When we get the lead, we're going with small ball," Florie said. "I don't care who is up. It kills me when you get a man on first and then the next batter hits a 400-foot fly ball and it's an out and your runner is still on first."
Florie called for a sacrifice bunt with a 10-5 lead in the fifth inning and again with a 13-5 lead in the bottom of the sixth.
While the Florie Way has led Butler to the brink of the WPIAL playoffs for the second consecutive year, it allowed Fox Chapel to make things interesting in the final two innings.
With a 14-5 lead, Florie instructed starting pitcher Zac Sessa to groove his offerings down the middle of the plate. Meanwhile, Florie brought his outfield in shallow to take away bloop singles.
Sessa followed Florie's instructions, which nearly backfired.
Fox Chapel (5-11, 2-10) scored six runs in the final two innings and had the tying run on deck when reliever Joey Marak struck out the final two hitters to preserve the win.
The Foxes had nine hits in the sixth and seventh innings, including two triples and a double.
Despite his unsightly statistics — six-plus innings, nine earned runs, 13 hits, three walks — Sessa pitched well.
Florie took the bullet for the carnage in the final two innings.
"When we go into a no-single defense and we tell our pitchers to bring it down Broadway, sometimes you'll get lucky," Florie said. "Tonight, the bombs go where you have no chance to catch them, so it looks ugly."
The win puts the Golden Tornado (11-8, 6-5) one step closer to a playoff berth.
If Seneca Valley (8-5, 5-5) loses to North Allegheny today in a game postponed from Monday, the Golden Tornado are in.
Should the Raiders beat North Allegheny (14-2, 9-1), the stage would be set for a game between Butler and Seneca Valley Wednesday chock full of playoff implications for both teams.
"I just don't want them to get too emotional," Florie said. "Baseball is not an emotional game. It's a thinking game."

Fox Chapel 200 302 4 — 11 14 1
Butler 171 141 x — 15 15 2
W: Zac Sessa (6Z\c IP) 3 K, 3 BB. L: J.T. Healy (1 IP) 0 K, 3 BB.
Fox Chapel (5-11, 2-10): Lou Curicio 1B, 2-RBI; Charles Williams 2B, 1B; Jayce DuQuette 3B, RBI; John Corcoran 2-1B, RBI; Dylan Plocki 3B, 1B, 2-RBI; Alex Haak 1B, 3B; Pete Burke 2-1B, RBI; J.T. Terwilliger 2B, RBI
Butler (11-8, 6-5): Tyler Slepski 2B, RBI; Dustin Uhlman 2B, 2-1B, 3-RBI; John Crummy 2-1B, 2-RBI; Eric King 2B, 1B, 2-RBI; Evan Oswald 3B, 1B, 3-RBI; Tanner McCaw 2B, 1B