WEXFORD — Peters Township baseball coach Joe Maize sat in the dugout with a lump in his throat.

The coach had just seen Butler score three runs in the bottom of the fourth inning against his ace pitcher, Ryan Minteer. He had also watched his offense struggle against Golden Tornado left-handed hurler Tyler Slepski, scoring just one run on back-to-back balks.

“When we were down 3-1, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that this would be the last time I had the opportunity to work with these kids,” Maize said.

Butler coach Todd Erdos, though, became the one with the sinking feeling.

Peters Township rallied for a run in the top of the fifth inning and four more in the top of the sixth and held off a late Butler rally for a 6-4 win in the WPIAL Class AAAA semifinal at North Allegheny Wednesday night.

Peters Township will play Seneca Valley for the WPIAL title next week.

Erdos and the Golden Tornado were left shaking their heads.

“These guys came out here and battled hard all season,” Erdos said. “They deserved to be in this spot. I know it's disappointing, but hopefully they'll look back and say, ‘Hey, we had a good year.'”

The Tornado just had one bad inning.

Peters Township (19-1) got those four runs in the fifth thanks to two hit batters, three stolen bases, two walks and three weak singles.

Slepski left the game with the bases loaded, one out and the score tied at 3-3. Cody Herald relieved him and gave up a two-run single to leadoff hitter Drew Erenberg and a RBI single later in the inning to Justin Bianco.

After that, though, Herald was perfect.

“It's always a tough spot to come in with the bases loaded in a tie game,” Erdos said. “Cody did what he could.”

Peters Township took a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning in a very peculiar way.

Bianco was hit by a pitch — the second of four batters Slepski hit in 5Z\c innings of work. He then stole second and scored on consecutive balk calls on Slepski.

Butler (14-5), though, responded with three runs off Minteer, who settled down after the Tornado big inning before running into trouble in the seventh.

“He probably only weights 150 pounds, but he has so much confidence in his ability,” Maize said of Minteer, who was hitting close to 90 mph with his fastball. “He's got that little cockiness to him. All year (Butler) has been pounding the ball and scoring a lot of runs. We knew Butler was very, very strong and this was going to be a close game.”

Butler made things interesting in the bottom of the seventh, scoring a run on an RBI single by Herald and had the winning run at the plate in Bobby Swartwout. But Minteer got a swinging strikeout to end the threat, and the game.

Peters Township hasn't been in many nailbiters this season.

The Indians' only loss this season came against a team from South Carolina during their spring trip in early April and their average margin of victory was seven runs coming into the WPIAL semifinals.

Peters Township has now won 16 straight games.

Still, Maize took nothing for granted.

“I didn't care about winning the section, I just wanted to get into the playoffs,” Maize said. “Now we're in the WPIAL championship game, I know we're in the state playoffs.”

Erdos' only lament is he won't have a chance to coach the seniors he inherited from former coach Dave Florie any longer.

“I loved being out here with the guys, talking to them, playing with them and working with them,” Erdos said. “It's my first year, so the seniors are going to be gone. Hopefully, they had as much fun as I did.”

Peters Township 000 114 0 — 6 6 1Butler 000 300 1 — 4 7 0W: Ryan Minteer 7 IP (6 K, 2 BB).

L: Tyler Slepski 5.1 IP (5 K, 4 BB).

Peters Township (18-1): Drew Erenberg 1B 2-RBI, Brady Sheetz 1B RBI, Justin Bianco 1B RBI, Chris Olivo 2B 1B RBI

Butler (14-5): Cody Herald 2-1B RBI, Bobby Swartwout 1B RBI, Slepski 2B, Nate Bresnahan RBI