Butler Township rolls to 18-1 victory
BUTLER TWP — Tyler Friel knew he had talent on his Butler Township team entering the Butler County Area Baseball League season.
The squad has quantified that belief rather impressively.
With its 18-1 win over visiting Karns City Tuesday evening, Butler Township moved its record to 12-3 and enters Wednesday's regular season finale against Saxonburg with a chance to earn the top seed entering the upcoming postseason tournament. Kiski and Freeport are also in that mix.
“We faced some adversity recently, losing back-to-back games to Cranberry and Freeport,” said Friel. “We came back with a 5-4 win over Center Township on Monday. I like the way the team responded. I think 12-3 is a good representation of the talent on this team.”
Teams in the league have struggled with the number of players available from game to game, but Friel believes his squad is in no worse shape than any of its opponents.
“We have 15 on our roster,” he said. “Some of our guys play in other leagues, but that's pretty common these days. We've had to call up a few guys from the Colt team, which is really good itself.
“We get a solid 10 players to every game.”
Friel admitted his team's hitting has been “up and down.” It had no shortage of highlights Tuesday. Kyle Weitzel led the way with three hits while Nate Stutz and Josh Bonetti both collected two hits. Five different players had at least two RBI.
Other areas of Butler Township's game have been more consistent.
“Our pitchers are throwing strikes and they don't walk many guys,” Friel said. “Our fielding has been great. We make solid plays, including in the outfield, no matter who we stick out there.”
“We didn't know exactly what our record would be, but we knew we'd be good,” said third baseman Josh Grigoletti. “It was my plan all along to play this summer.”
Friel's team changed its identity this past offseason from Meridian to Butler Township. The two used to be separate entries in Butler County's American Legion league, but the latter dropped out a decade ago. Meridian picked up any players from Butler Township that wanted to play.
“The change in name had been in the works for a while,” said Friel. “Our feeder system goes by 'Butler Township' and we figured with the group of guys we have coming through now, the time was right.”
Karns City 010 00x x — 1 2 5
Butler Twp. 4(11)3 0xx x — 18 9 0
W: Remy Pardo 3 IP (1K, 0BB). L: Broc Weigle 1 IP (2K, 3BB).
Karns City (4-10): Joe Dehart 1B, Luke Whitcomb 1B
Butler Township (12-3): Kyle Weitzel 2-1B 2B 4R 2RBI, Colby Anderson 1B 2R 3RBI, Nate Stutz 1B 2B 2R 2RBI, Josh Grigoletti 1B 2R RBI, Josh Bonetti 2-1B R RBI
Wednesday: Saxonburg at Butler Township
Saturday: Karns City at Cranberry Township (DH)
