CRANBERRY TWP — Justin Lowe singled up the middle with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning Sunday night at Graham Park, driving home the winning run from third for a 9-8 Pine Richland victory over Butler Township in the BCABL Tournament.

The win put Pine Richland (14-7) into the league championship game this Saturday. Either Butler Township, Cranberry Township or West Sunbury would have to beat PR twice to dethrone the defending champion.

“We're getting all of our players back and our pitching will be in great shape,” Pine Richland coach Brad Ansell said. “We have a great chance to repeat.”

The win was Pine Richland's second consecutive extra-inning triumph in the tournament,. It needed 11 innings to post a 15-11 win over Cranberry last week, sending the latter into the loser's bracket of the double-elimination tourney.

Ethan O'Neil had three hits and a critical RBI for Pine Richland on Sunday.

Butler Township (11-10) won a pair of close games — 2-0 over Karns City and 6-5 against Freeport — before succumbing to Pine Richland.

“This was a tough one for us,” BT coach Tyler Friel said. “We had a two-run lead going into the bottom of the seventh and couldn't hold it.”

O'Neil had the game-tying hit with two outs in the seventh.

Austin Rodgers tossed six innings for Butler Township and hit a home run. He was removed from the mound after throwing 110 pitches.

“We just didn't do anything offensively after the fifth,” Friel said. “Our bats went quiet. We had our chances ... just left too many guys on base.”

Butler Township stranded 10 runners.

Josh Bonetti had two doubles and two RBI while John Piroch had a double and two RBI for BT.

Butler Township will play the winner of Tuesday's West Sunbury-Cranberry game on Thursday. That winner will get another shot at Pine Richland.

“The top four or five teams in this league have really been balanced,” Ansell said. “We came from behind late to tie Cranberry, then did the same thing tonight.

“It's come down to making the right plays at the right time and we've been doing that. But you want competitive baseball in your league's tournament and that's what we've been getting.”

West Sunbury 6, Freeport 0

Top-seeded Freeport, after going 14-3 in the regular season to receive a first-round bye in the tournament, dropped its second straight game and was eliminated.

Gage Neal was the winning pitcher for West Sunbury (7-13), which advances to play Cranberry Township (13-7) Tuesday night at Graham Park. Cranberry won by forfeit over Karns City on Sunday.

“Gage pitched a great game for us,” West Sunbury coach Matt Williams said. “He really only got into trouble one time. Freeport loaded the bases with one out and he got out of it.”

Neal had eight strikeouts on the night. Brady Thompson doubled and singled and drove in two runs. Zack Thompson and Mason Mershimer had two hits each for West Sunbury.

“We're playing with a lot of confidence right now,” Williams said. “I think we're peaking at the right time.”