Complete Effort
Recent trends held true Monday night at Michelle Krill Field at Historic Pullman Park.
Seneca Valley’s Nate Malak made sure of it.
In a complete-game effort, the Raiders’ senior right-hander allowed host Butler only one hit through six frames and held off a Golden Tornado rally in the home seventh to complete the 1-0 shutout.
With the victory, surging Seneca Valley (10-4, 5-4) wrapped up a postseason berth at reeling Butler’s expense, making Tuesday’s matchup a crucial one for the Golden Tornado.
“Our number one goal was to make the second season,” Raiders coach Eric Semega said. “We did it tonight. I’m really proud for them to get to experience this. When you win, things are good.”
After allowing Ethan Trettel a bloop lead-off single up the middle in Butler’s first at-bat, Malak turned away 17 consecutive challengers. He racked up 11 strikeouts in total and walked none.
“He’s been solid for us all year long,” Semega said. “Tonight, he was not missing at all. He was on tonight.”
“It’s a big confidence booster,” Malak said. “You start striking (them) out and getting these weak hits, that starts to deflate them and you know you’re on top of them at that point.”
The Raiders did their best to give him some run support in the top of the third, when with two outs and the bases full, Owen Yarussi strode into the batter’s box.
He slapped a hard grounder up the middle, which the Golden Tornado’s Lance Slater laid for and grabbed. He flipped the ball on to second from his stomach to keep the game scoreless.
Two innings later, SV’s Brock White reached after being hit by a Cooper Baxter offering and stole second shortly thereafter. He made it to third on a wild pitch before being driven in by Luke Anderton’s RBI single.
With runners on the corners following a free pass given to Malak, Baxter rung Yarussi up looking to avoid any further damage.
For Butler (9-5, 4-5), Baxter turned in 5.2 innings of work, sitting down six on strikes and walking three. If not for his counterpart’s stifling performance, he might have notched a decision himself.
“I mean, Cooper’s been doing this since he was a freshman,” Golden Tornado coach Josh Forbes said. “He just keeps giving us chances to win baseball games (and) putting teams on his back.”
Neither team got anything going until the bottom seventh, when Trettel and Madden Clement hit back-to-back singles to put two aboard with none away.
Malak dug in on the mound, bookending Conner McTighe’s deep fly out to center with a pair of punchouts.
“We didn’t know if one (run) was going to be good enough, even though he was pitching really well,” Semega said. “He could have easily just succumbed to the pressure and he didn’t. He beared down and got a big strikeout at the end.”
The runners had made it to second and third on a wild pitch prior to Brady Gavula’s wave to end it.
“We would’ve loved to have capitalized on those opportunities,” Forbes said. “That’s just baseball. Sometimes you just don’t get the good outcomes.”
If Butler can’t turn it around in visiting the Raiders Tuesday, they’ll miss out on playoffs.
Seneca Valley 000 010 0 — 1 5 0
Butler 000 000 0 — 0 3 0
W: Nate Malak 7IP (11K, 0BB). L: Cooper Baxter 5.2IP (6K, 3BB)
Seneca Valley (10-4, 5-4): AJ Capizzi 2-1B, Luke Anderton 1B 2B RBI, Nate Malak 1B, Brock White R
Butler (9-5, 4-5): Ethan Trettel 2-1B, Madden Clement 1B
Tuesday: Butler at Seneca Valley
