Butler BlueSox closer Zach Spangler put his catcher, Russell Clark, in a perfect position when he sent the baseball zooming off the plate and straight into the backstop.

Clark noticed the West Virginia Miners refrained from bunting and were more aggressive with their base-stealing efforts when Butler’s pitchers were wild earlier in the game.

Lopez attempted to steal on the next pitch and Clark fired a laser to shortstop Matt Hansen for the first out in the ninth inning.

Spangler, a Seneca Valley graduate, settled down, getting the last two outs to help the BlueSox close out a 6-5 Prospect League East Division win.

Clark caught three runners stealing — including Lopez twice.

He was certain in the ninth that Lopez would be moving after drawing a lead-off walk.

“The first at-bat of the inning, our guy was a little wild,” Clark said. “They did that early in the game, when our starter was wild they didn’t bunt. They had the same approach and it paid off for us.”

The win — which snapped a two-game skid for the Blue Sox (6-6) — was also thanks to a rejuvenated offense. Butler pounded out 10 hits to raise its team average to .249.

Clark — who is batting .122 — collected his fifth hit, a single to center field in the eighth inning that drove in Tyler Sullivan for the game-winning run.

Sullivan got on base by smashing a double off reliever Masashi Sakamoto that spring boarded into the outfield after hitting first base.

“A lot of us are in here working with the coaches working on our swing,” Sullivan said. “We’re staying confident and hope good things will happen.”

Getting clutch hitting was a nice sight for BlueSox manager Jason Radwan, who saw his team drop a pair of one-run games to Champion City last weekend.

Butler is a game behind second-place West Virginia and 2.5 behind first-place Jamestown.

“The league right now is all packed down together,” BlueSox manager Jason Radwan said. “There’s no one way ahead of anyone else. It’s good to get a win after those two tough losses away. We play well at home, we just need to figure it out on the road a little bit.”

The BlueSox had to overcome some wildness from starting pitcher Andre Jones.

A week after limiting West Virginia (7-5) to two hits in six innings of work, Jones issued four walks, hit a batter and allowed five runs in 5 2/3 innings of work.

West Virginia manager Tim Epling said his team swung at better pitches.

“We hit some balls really hard. We just made some young, immature base-running mistakes trying too hard to make something happen,” Epling said. “There’s a time to be aggressive and a time to understand the situation, that’s what we did wrong today.”

West Virginia did take advantage of Butler errors to plate runs in the first and second innings.

Butler answered with an RBI double from Dave Marcus in the first and a sacrifice fly from Allan Hooker in the second to tie the game.

Sullivan put the BlueSox ahead with an RBI single in the third and Matt Hansen and Alex Miklos stretched the lead to 5-2 with RBI singles in the fourth.

The Miners rallied, plating two more runs off Jones on a sac fly by Dylan Harper and double from Dom Iero in the fifth.

West Virginia tied the game when Stone Osborne tripled in Hunter Vansau in the sixth.

Butler stole the win following Sullivan and Clark’s hits in the eighth.

While Clark’s instincts eliminated three base runners, he thanked reinforcements for the win.

Hooker, who tripled and drove in a run, and Dan Hrbek, who singled, made their first appearances for the BlueSox.

“Everyone was rejuvenated,” Clark said. “We got a few guys today and we’ve been playing with nine or 10 guys. We rested up yesterday, came out and played well.”

West Virginia 110 021 000 — 5 6 1

Butler 111 200 01x — 6 10 2

W: Eli Martin 1IP (1K, 1BB). L: Masashi Sakamoto 2.2IP (K, 0BB). S: Zach Spangler 1IP (0K,1 BB).

West Virginia (7-5): Ray Lopez 1B, Dom Iero 2B, Zach Sterry 1B, Mark DeYoung 1B, Hunter Vansau 1B, Stone Osborne 3B,

Butler (6-6): Matt Hansen 1B RBI, Dan Hrbek 1B, Alex Miklos 1B 2 RBI, David Marcus 1B 2B RBI, Ty Sullivan 1B 2B, Russell Clark 1B RBI, Allan Hooker 3B

Today: West Virginia at Butler