Butler Twp. blasts Franklin to win district title
BUTLER TWP — Butler Township coach Jason Stobert believes in solid baserunning — which is good, because his 11-year-old All-Star team has gotten used to it.
In Friday's District 25 Championship final against Franklin, Butler Township broke open a close game with five runs in the third inning and 11 more in the next frame to record a convincing 18-8, four-inning victory at Adelman Field.
Butler Township, which won all five of its playoff games en route to the title, sent a total of 25 batters to the plate over those final two innings.
"Good baserunning — that's one thing the kids know," said Stobert. "I get a little excited when they take naps on the bases.
"Every game we've played we've had good baserunning. That's been an overwhelming difference. Teams may hit better than us, but we've shown we can run," he added.
Leading 2-1 in the third inning, Butler Township used a pair of wild pitches to plate two runs.
They also scored another run on an error and had a bases-loaded walk by Jacob Ferguson and an RBI infield single by Shae Stobert to account for the others.
Franklin battled back with a one-out home run by Nate Cardy before Andy Frederick doubled, moved to third on a wild pitch and scored on a fielder's choice to make it 7-3.
In the fourth, Butler Township's Canan Roskovski had a two-run double, and Alex Russo, Ferguson and Josh Friel each added run-scoring singles to highlight the inning, which also included four walks, two errors and four wild pitches by Franklin.
"We played (Franklin) once earlier this year (a 12-9 win) so I was not so sure I expected a big inning like that," said Stobert. "But Franklin did have three games back to back."
"We knew it would be a close game," said Franklin coach Jim Janidlo. "We played Butler Township last year and didn't play as well then.
"Earlier this year we were close to tying it, but they pulled it out," he added.
So it wasn't a surprise when Franklin battled back Friday and almost pushed the game onward to avoid the 10-run mercy rule.
Franklin pieced together five consecutive hits, including RBI singles by Matt Black and Logan Mooney. An error and a wild pitch led to other runs, and Ryan Madden added an RBI double.
Shae Stobert relieved Roskovski and got the final out, a grounder to first that caused Stobert to cover the bag.
"We had our best pitcher on the mound," said Jason Stobert on Roskovski. "In that first game against Franklin, he had eight strikeouts and really dominated.
"This is an All-Star team. He pitched well, but the difference was he got some good outs behind him. Our last regular-season game was a month ago and he's pitched once since then," he added.
Next up, Butler Township will play in the Section 2 tournament, which will begin Thursday in Erie.
The concept of moving on was a bit unexpected for some.
"For two years this team lost some close games," said Stobert. "Our slogan's been to jell as a team, to be cool. We're a work in progress."
Notes: Trevor Emerick had an opposite-field RBI single in the first inning to give Butler a 1-0 lead. ... Franklin won the coin toss and chose to be the home team. ... Franklin outhit Butler Township 12-11. ... Fifteen of the 18 players in the starting lineup had at least one hit.
