May 27, 2025 By Jerin Steele 4 min read

The first inning of Tuesday’s WPIAL Class 5A baseball consolation game couldn’t have gone much worse for Peters Township.

First, the Indians left the bases loaded.

That was just the tip of the iceberg.

In the bottom half, Bethel Park had the first seven batters reach base, ended up with 13 total baserunners and scored eight runs.

That elongated and productive inning set the table for a 17-2 win in four innings for the Black Hawks at a rainy Ross Memorial Park in Washington.

“There’s a lot we can learn from this,” Indians coach Rocky Plassio said. “We got beat by our rival and not only did we get beat, but we got it handed to us in the absolute worst way in a significant game. It stings tremendously and hopefully the kids can learn something from it and keep fighting hard.”

The good news for the Indians is that they are still in the state playoffs. They’ll play District 3 champ Lampeter-Strasburg in the first round. Bethel Park faces District 9 champ DuBois. Both games are scheduled for Monday.

“We definitely made (the travel) harder on ourselves,” Plassio said. “We’ll see what kind of team we got when we get back onto the field.”

Bethel Park (19-5) and Peters Township (15-9) split their regular-season series in Class 5A Section 2 play, but the rubber match got away from the Indians early.

In the eight-run first inning, Bethel Park had only three hits. The Black Hawks took advantage of four walks, two hit batsmen and one error.

Ryan Petras led off the inning with a double off the wall in left field. Then Indians starter Jack Stewart walked Ethan Stanhoff and hit Noah LeJeune to load the bases.

Mike Bruckner drew an RBI walk and Nick Rillo was hit by a pitch to bring in another run to make it 2-0.

Jack Brucker followed with the biggest hit of the inning, a two-run double, which just eluded a diving attempt by Indians right fielder Reese Clark.

Stewart hit Owen White with a pitch to load the bases again and that was the last batter he faced. He did not record an out.

Brady Pirosko came on in relief and struck out Eric Miehl for the first out, but with Joey Levis at the plate, Indians catcher Zach Miner tried to back-pick the runner at first and his throw went into right field and two runs came in to score. White moved to third and came in on a sacrifice fly to left field by Levis.

Petras hit a bunt single, stole second, moved to third on a wild pitch. Stanhoff walked and courtesy runner Caden Stokes stole second, which allowed Petras to score on a delayed steal for Bethel Park’s eighth run.

“The credit goes to them,” Plassio said. “The Bethel Park kids did everything that we hoped we could’ve done. They fought hard and deserved the outcome they got.”

Petras had two of the three hits in the inning and finished the game 4-for-4 with a pair of double and RBI and four runs scored.

“He’s good,” Bethel Park coach Pat Zehnder said. “He’s so smart and heady out there and plays such a good brand of baseball.”

The Indians loaded the bases with two outs in the top of the first but couldn’t push a run across.

James Tygard ripped a one out double to left center and Jackson Stocker walked to put runners on first and second.

Matt Hughes struck out Brody Takacs for the second out, but walked David Oberschelp to load the bases.

He got out of the jam by getting Reese Clark to fly out to center.

Oberschelp got Peters Township on the board in the third by hitting a no-doubt two-run homer to left field.

Bethel Park immediately responded with two runs in the bottom half. .

The Black Hawks batted around in the fourth and scored seven runs to put the game into mercy rule.

“We’ve been our best baseball the last couple weeks,” Zehnder said. “We’re continuing to trend upward in all facets and we’ve just got to keep going now.”