Most times when a No. 5 seed from one district beats a champion from another district, it’s considered an upset.
But the Neshaminy baseball team is not your normal No. 5 seed.
The District 1 school that used to be called the Redskins and now has a nickname of Skins had Liberty fans seeing red on Monday night in a stunning 4-0 loss in the first round of the PIAA Class 6A tournament at DeSales University’s Weiland Park.
And, the team that had a cumulative batting average of .322 and averaged 7.1 runs per game was the victim of a combined no-hitter by Neshaminy’s Luke Schweiker and Steven Martin.
While the shutout and no-hitter were unexpected, the loss wasn’t a complete shock considering that Neshaminy (21-3) had been ranked No. 1 in the state for a large portion of the season by MaxPreps.
Liberty, which had steamrolled its way to second straight Eastern Pennsylvania Conference title and a third consecutive District 11 championship, had won 12 playoff games in a row at DeSales, a streak that began after a 1-0 loss to Nazareth in the 2022 EPC semis.
But the team that was usually bashes the ball at Butz Field was largely muted.
“Today was tough and this was a tough draw for us and we didn’t play up to our capability, but we give them credit because heck, they no-hitted us,” Hurricanes coach Andy Pitsilos said. “We were waiting for that big inning. Usually we have an explosion. But we didn’t have an explosion today.”
Schweiker, a senior lefthander who is headed to Chestnut Hill College, gave Liberty its share of chances with six walks in four innings. However, he stayed composed and ended up leaving five on base.
The tone was set in the first inning when Liberty’s Braylen Gonzalez led off with a walk on four pitches but was doubled up at first when Jack Evans’ sacrifice bunt attempt turned out to be a soft popup. Schweiker caught the easy fly and flipped to first. Jacob Rivera walked, but Rivera was picked off and tagged out trying to get to second.
“That’s something we practice and work on all the time,” Schweiker said. “We try to go out there as pitchers and execute all of the plays. We try to pick each other up and make plays for each other.”
Schweiker had to bare down and work through the walks he issued.
“That’s something I have been battling with the whole year and really, my whole career,” Schweiker said of the bases on balls. “But I love those moments when the pressure gets high and I like to show I can step up and get the outs when it matters.”
Steven Martin provided no laughs for Liberty either. The junior replaced Schweiker in the fifth and allowed just one baserunner — the third walk of the game by Rivera — to start the sixth.
Paul Erfle’s deep to fly to left was run down by Neshaminy’s Joel Bonner to end the sixth and shortstop Chase Bonner cut off a hard groundball up the middle to get Dayton Aguiar at first to end the game.
Two of Neshaminy’s best pitchers weren’t available to go for one reason or another, but Schweiker, Martin and the defense didn’t allow it to matter.
“We needed Schweiker to step up and he has stepped for us over the last week,” Neshaminy coach Dan Toner said. “He was our late-relief guy and then we saw how he’s been very hard to hit. We have some guys out and so we knew that if we got him out before he hit 75 pitches he could go for us again on Thursday. He does that very rarely [walk guys] but we know he can get out of it and he did it today. For him and Martin to get a combined no-hitter against that team, I’m very proud of them.”
Both Schweiker and Martin might get the ball again as Neshaminy will meet District 2 champ Hazleton in the 6A quarterfinals.
Meanwhile, Liberty’s ace, Noah Gyauch-Quirk, pitched well in his final high school game. The righthander who has been as good as any area pitcher over the past three seasons, allowed eight hits, three walks and seven strikeouts. One of the four runs he allowed was unearned. He left with two out in the seventh after having reached the pitch count limit of 105.
Neshaminy picked up runs in the third and fourth. Stone Powell had an RBI double in the third, Mike Sassano singled in a run in the fourth and Brandon Lall provided some insurance with a two-run single after Gyauch-Quirk departed in the seventh.
It was an emotional postgame gathering around the dugout for a proud Liberty team that finished 20-6. The senior group leaves with five championships on their resume and a trip to the state finals in 2022. They won 66 of 80 games over the past three seasons.
Many former players came on the field to offer their support as hearty hugs were given and faces streamed with tears.
“It’s a special group,” Pitsilos said. “The 11 seniors gave a lot to this program. I have to thank every single of them because they all gave us everything they had and listened to what we had to say. It’s hard sometimes to get kids to buy in to our philosophy. They worked hard on their own. We wish the seniors well and now we see where we go from here with our program and see if we’re going to have to reload or rebuild.”
