NA Falls To Butler In WPIAL Championship, 4-2

Third-seeded North Allegheny dropped a 4-2 decision to top-seeded Butler in the WPIAL Class 6A championship on Wednesday afternoon at EQT Park in Washington, PA. The Tigers were making their fourth appearance in the WPIAL title game in the last six years, while Butler was competing in the championship contest for the first time since 1992.

In a projected pitcher’s duel between North Allegheny’s Liam Cooper and Butler’s Nolan Stefaniak, the game was scoreless going into the bottom of the third before the Golden Tornado broke the deadlock. Junior Jake Szebalskie led off the inning with a base hit, and an out later, South Carolina Aiken commit, Boden Lenyk, drove a high fly ball over the left field fence for a two-run homer, giving Butler a 2- 0 lead.

Stefaniak, a Penn State commit and major league draft prospect, retired the first nine batters he faced, including six strikeouts, but ran into trouble in the fourth inning. North Allegheny junior Jake Fritz drove an opposite field triple down the right field line to start the inning, and raced home on a Stefaniak wild pitch, cutting the Butler lead to 2-1. Finishing 2-for-4 on the day with a triple and a run scored, Fritz was named the Wright Automotive Player of the Game.

In the fifth inning, North Allegheny struck again to tie the game. Junior Gavin Ust led off with a single and stole second. Two outs later, senior Carter Boehm delivered a clutch RBI single to score Ust, and the game was knotted at 2-2.

The tie was short-lived, however, as Pitt commit Mavrik Clement vaulted Butler back in front with an RBI double in the bottom of the fifth. Later in the frame, a Stefaniak RBI single scored Clement for a 4-2 lead.

With Stefaniak scuffling in the fourth and fifth innings, Butler turned to WVU commit Kyle Casteel out of the bullpen, who tossed a scoreless sixth and seventh frames to secure the win and the Golden Tornado’s first-ever WPIAL championship in baseball.

Casteel struck out the side in the seventh to collect his first save of the season. Stefaniak earned the victory and struck out nine batters to improve to 6-1 on the year. Cooper was saddled with the loss despite pitching well, going five innings and permitting four runs, just two earned, with no walks and one strikeout.

For North Allegheny, the loss ends the season with a 14-9 overall record. Congratulations to head coach Andrew Heck and the entire team for a memorable season and another trip to the WPIAL championship game.

Winners of 13 in a row, Butler improves to 20-3 on the year and will play Mifflin County in the first round of the PIAA playoffs on Monday.

BASEBALL SUMMARY VS. BUTLER, 5-27-26