PIAA baseball championship 2026: Butler vs Neshaminy key players, how to watch and prediction
Butler has made history already — twice — this season. It’s hoping to do so one more time.
The WPIAL champion Golden Tornado (23-3) take on District 1’s fourth-place team Neshaminy (20-7) in the PIAA Class 6A baseball championship at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, June 11, at Penn State’s Medlar Field.
Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the biggest game in program history, plus a prediction.
Livestream: The state championship will be broadcast and livestreamed on PCN. A digital subscription costs $14.99 for one month.
Tickets: They can be purchased for $9 in advance on hometownticketing.com and for $10 at the door
Butler: Nolan Stefaniak. The Golden Tornado’s pitching has been sensational all year. Stefaniak (Penn State) has been half of that equation and made it all the way to the WPIAL final before allowing his first earned run of the season. Read that fact again to let it sink in. In 53.2 innings this season, the right-hander (8-1) with a mid-90s fastball has a team-leading 0.52 ERA and 82 strikeouts. Teams are hitting just .115 against him.
Neshaminy: According to PhillyBurbs.com, senior two-time Suburban One League Patriot Division Player of the Year Chase Bonner (Rider) is the presumptive starter. He’s 7-1 this season with a 2.59 ERA and 50 strikeouts in 48.2 innings. The Skins also have Monday’s starter Matthew Gryn (8-1), a senior left-hander with a 1.58 ERA and 44 Ks, available by PIAA pitch-count rules if needed after he fired just 75 pitches to complete the win over Pennsbury.
Butler: Beyond the two pitchers, add Trent Best, Mavrik Clement and Boden Lenyk (South Carolina-Aiken) to the list of standouts on this roster. The lineup, averaging 5.2 runs per game, has had a penchant during the postseason of coming up with timely hits late in games plus hitting balls out of the yard. Lenyk has hit homers twice in the last three weeks: against North Allegheny in the WPIAL final (which surprised him) and a no-doubter Monday in the semis. He’s hitting .262 with 25 runs, 17 RBIs, five long balls and 12 extra-base hits. Clement, the Pitt pledge who commands the battery, slugs (15 extra-base hits, three homers) and is hitting at a .311 clip with 13 RBIs and nine runs scored. Best leads this offense with a .384 batting average and has scored 19 runs and driven in 18 more. Stefaniak will have a chance to help his own cause one more time — he’s hitting .370 (second on the Tornado) with 15 runs, 20 RBIs and two dingers.
Neshaminy: Bonner, Gryn (Lackawanna) and Mike Sassano (Delaware Valley football) are the engine of an offense averaging 7.3 runs per game. Sassano, a senior second baseman batting from the leadoff spot, is hitting .344 with a team-high 27 runs scored and 11 RBIs. He doesn’t provide much pop, but he’s gone 4-for-12 with an RBI and three stolen bases during states. Bonner leads the team with a .437 average, 24 RBIs, 14 extra-base hits and three homers. His 25 runs scored are second on the team. Gryn is just behind him in most stats, hitting .431 with 17 runs, 18 RBIs and a team-high 10 stolen bases. The Skins don’t stack their two best hitters together, instead making it difficult for pitchers to find a soft spot in the lineup by slotting Bonner in the three-hole and Gryn sixth.
Especially with Gryn available for Neshaminy, this might come down to if Stefaniak can go the distance one last time. Butler trusts its pitchers behind star aces Stefaniak and Kyle Casteel (West Virginia) — the latter is unavailable after he threw the maximum pitches allowed in a PIAA playoff game Monday to get Butler to this point — but bringing in a reliever off weeks of rest would be tough, especially since the Skins can match with Gryn out of the bullpen. Ryan Rattigan (23 IP, 26 Ks, 1.83 ERA) and Blake Scott (18.2 IP, 17 Ks, 3.75 ERA) are the most likely options out of Butler’s pen. If Stefaniak can be efficient and the lineup can keep providing enough run support, the Tornado will be in good shape.
Butler: Coached by Josh Forbes, it beat Owen J. Roberts 4-2 in the state semis. It has never made the championship game, only making it as far as the semifinals once before — in 1992, when pitching coach Matt Clement was on the team.
Neshaminy: Coached by Dan Toner, it rallied to beat Pennsbury 2-1 in the state semis. The Skins have also never made a state final before this year but are in their third tournament in the last five seasons, losing in the semifinals last year to North Penn.
Jake Merda Adams: I’m riding the hot hand here. Butler has won 16 straight, has the better starting pitcher and just has a knack for timely hitting. Neshaminy got beat up in the last two District 1 tournament games it played before winning three in a row to get here. Butler 4, Neshaminy 2
