Schools
Updated: Seneca Valley Defeats McDowell in First Round of PIAA Baseball Playoffs
The Raiders advance to next round. The SV girls softball team also lost to McDowell on Monday.
It wasn’t fireworks night, it only seemed like it during the six-run third inning.
Seneca Valley High School’s WPIAL opened the PIAA Class AAAA playoffs with another strong performance at the plate, knocking out Erie McDowell (20-3) with an 8-5 victory late Monday afternoon at Butler.
Seneca Valley moved to 17-3, and set up a rematch of the WPIAL title game against Peters Township (20-3) in the second round of the state playoffs on Thursday. The Raiders defeated Peters Township, 15-4, last week in Washington.
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Erie McDowell, the District 10 champ, built an early 3-0 lead, but Seneca Valley got the bats moving with a run in the bottom of the second and added six more in the third inning.
Senior outfielder Christian Durban went 3-for-3 at the plate. Two of his four runs batted in came in the third-inning outburst. Austin Bream also drive in a pair of runs in the big inning.
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Seneca Valley also faced Erie McDowell in the opening round of the PIAA Class AAAA softball playoffs Monday at Penn State Behrend campus.
The WPIAL runner-up Raiders finished the softball season with a 13-7 record after dropping a 4-3 decision to the District 10 champs.
Once again, the Raiders went down swinging. Megan Buletko delivered a two-run single in the seventh inning, but Erie McDowell stopped the rally and advanced.
Buletko’s hit sparked the kind of momentum teammate Emily Watson provided with her seventh-inning home run in a 5-3 at California University.
