SLIPPERY ROCK — Gunner Becker was at his best when he needed to be.

The right-handed pitcher on the Slippery Rock High baseball team struck out eight, but pitched out of several jams to lead the Rockets to a 3-1 win over rival Grove City in the District 10 Class AAA quarterfinals Thursday night at Critchfield Park.

“I don't think he had his top stuff,” said Slippery Rock coach Nathan McCollough. “But he battled.”

He had to battle because he hit four batters — including plunking Nick Davies with the bases loaded for the Eagles' only run — and had three fielding errors behind him.

Becker only gave up three hits.

“We played a bad game today,” McCollough said. “Hats off to Grove City. They made us earn it today. We played to lose a game today. Gunner kept us in the game. Defensively we made a lot of bad mistakes and offensively we didn't hit well.”

Part of that had to do with Grove City pitcher Kyle Shingledecker, who was making his first start of the season.

Used out of the pen all season, Grove City coach Bill Herman said he decided to give Shingledecker the ball because it gave his team the best chance to win.

Ace Justin Orlowski pitched 6 2/3 innings on Monday and was unavailable.

Shingledecker gave up two runs on five hits in five innings.

Slippery Rock got to him for those two runs in the top of the third inning on a RBI groundout by Dylan Dingle and a sacrifice fly by Danny Williams.

“Kyle gave us five incredible innings,” Herman said. “If you would have said two runs through five with Kyle, we would have taken it.

“We had baserunners in every inning,” Herman added. “That was our goal. To be relentless. We were just one or two big hits short of having a big inning or two.”

Grove City (7-14) stranded nine runners in the loss.

Slippery Rock did manage eight hits against Shingledecker and reliever Trey Adams.

The Rockets scored an insurance run in the sixth inning as Cody Lawniczak blooped a double down the right-field line and scored on a bunt single by Kyle Benson.

That was more than enough for Becker.

“It's a win,” McCollough said. “It's the playoffs, so this is good. But our level of competing has to go up.

“Shingledecker did a great job. We were down in the count a lot and weren't able to do a lot of things we like to do on the bases.”

Slippery Rock (16-5) will play Fort LeBoeuf (14-3) Monday at a site and time to be determined in the District 10 Class AAA semifinals.

For Grove City, which won a playoff game Monday, it was the end of an up-and-down season that featured a poor start and a good finish.

“When we were three-quarters through, it was a disappointing year,” Herman said. “I'm proud of our guys because they could have thrown in the towel when things weren't going well early on. We played some of our best baseball here the last two weeks. I think today we played a good baseball game.”

Slippery Rock 002 001 0 — 3 8 3

Grove City 001 000 0 — 1 3 2

W: Gunner Becker 7IP (8K, 0BB). L: Kyle Shingledecker 5IP (5K, 2BB).

Slippery Rock (16-5): Ryan Lauster 1B, Dylan Dingle 2-1B RBI, Danny Williams RBI, Zach Van Dyke 2B, Josh Bowser 1B, Cody Lawniczak 2B, Collin Hyatt 1B, Kyle Benson 1B RBI

Grove City (7-14): Carter Chinn 1B, Xian Messett 1B, Brayden Martin 1B, Nick Davies RBI

Monday: Slippery Rock vs. Fort LeBoeuf in District 10 Class AAA championship game, site and time TBD