Seton Hill baseball knocks off nation's No. 1 team
Christian Zilli (Hempfield) pitched a scoreless 11th inning to earn his third save of the season, and Noah Sweeney (Greensburg Salem) drove in Aidan Shephard (Norwin) for the winning run on a double play grounder as Seton Hill handed No. 1 Tampa its first loss of the season, 6-5, on Monday.
Tampa was averaging more than 12 runs per game.
THEY'VE DONE IT! #11 @SHGriffBaseball has taken down the unbeaten Tampa Spartans in 11 innings 6-5! There's a reason we ranked Seton Hill #4 in the preseason and still at #11, and they showed why today!
Max Mandler went 3-5 with a HR and 2 RBI#D2Baseball pic.twitter.com/RXUYLTt2PX
— D2 Baseball (@divIIbaseball) March 4, 2024
The Griffins (7-3) got a home run and double from Max Mandler (Upper St. Clair), who went 3 for 5 with two RBIs. This was their third consecutive one-run victory during the spring break trip to central Florida.
Seton Hill took a 5-3 lead into the home half of the ninth after Mandler’s solo shot.
Sweeney, Shephard, Braden Durham and Owen Sabol (Norwin) had doubles, and Jakob Haynes (Penn-Trafford) had two hits and an RBI. Evan Rossi pitched a scoreless 10th to earn the win.
Tampa (17-1) saw its 17-game winning streak to begin the season end.
Win number seven, from Tampa. pic.twitter.com/vY46CwMqrp
— Seton Hill Baseball (@SHGriffBaseball) March 5, 2024
Paul Schofield is a TribLive reporter covering high school and college sports and local golf. He joined the Trib in 1995 after spending 15 years at the Daily Courier in Connellsville, where he served as sports editor for 14 years. He can be reached at pschofield@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.