Horvat pitches, hits W&J to victory
Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter
Washington & Jefferson’s Tyler Horvat (4) is greeted at home plate by teammates Jason Gregovitz (28) and Peter Kalinski (6) to celebrate Horvat’s three-run home run against Saint Vincent in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference tournament Thursday at Ross Memorial Park. Horvat was the winning pitcher in W&J’s 7-1 victory.
Mark Marietta/For the Observer=Reporter
The throw to the plate is not in time for Saint Vincent’s Joe Rudzinski to tag Washington & Jefferson’s Peter Kalinski as he slides safely home with the Presidents’ first run.
Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter
Washington & Jefferson starting pitcher Tyler Horvat is congratulated as he returns to the dugout from rounding the bases following his three-run homer in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference tournament game Thursday against Saint Vincent at Ross Memorial Park.
Mark Marietta/For the O-R
Washington & Jefferson’s Tyler Horvat was a standout pitcher and center fielder.
Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter
Infielder Logan Scheider and Washington & Jefferson will begin play in the NCAA Division III baseball tournament Thursday against Birmingham-Southern in North Carolina.
Tyler Horvat is one college baseball starting pitcher who can provide his own run support.
Horvat, a sophomore pitcher and outfielder for Washington & Jefferson, did a little of everything Thursday in the opening game of the Presidents’ Athletic Conference tournament at Ross Memorial Park. He did his best Shohei Ohtani impression by pitching seven strong innings and breaking open a close game with a three-run homer as W&J advanced to the winners’ bracket with a 7-1 victory over Saint Vincent.
The Presidents (34-1), ranked No. 4 in the nation, will play Grove City (28-8), a 9-3 winner over Franciscan, at noon today.
Horvat, who is one of three W&J starting pitchers who would easily be the ace of most NCAA Division III pitching staffs, typically is W&J’s second starter in a series. However, with Horvat’s ability to play the outfield, W&J coach Jeff Mountain opted to bump Horvat’s start to the opening game of the double-elimination conference tournament.
“Evan Sante is our center fielder, but he’s out with ankle injury. Tyler is our right fielder,” Mountain pointed out. “We felt the difference in our pitching is minimal but we wanted to have our best outfield in the next game, and that would be having Horvat in center field.”
So Horvat got the assignment to pitch the opener. That proved to be a good decision. The righthander threw seven innings, allowing five hits and only one run. He walked two, struck out four and improved his season record to 9-0 and lowered his ERA to 1.53.
Throughout his stint on the mound, Horvat was a coach’s and fielder’s dream. He worked fast, consistently threw first-pitch strikes and kept the ball down in the strike zone. Ten of Saint Vincent’s first 12 batters grounded out.
“First-pitch strikes. That was the key,” Horvat confirmed. “I was able to get ahead in the count and get them to hit my pitch.”
Neither team did much hitting for the first six innings as the game was a pitchers’ duel between Horvat and Saint Vincent lefty Jimmy Malone, who had three very good outings in his career against W&J, including a win over the Presidents in the PAC tournament in 2018.
W&J took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when, with Peter Kalinski on second base, cleanup hitter Adam Moore laced a single to left field. The throw to home plate appeared to beat Kalinski but the baseball popped out of the glove of Saint Vincent catcher Joe Rudzinski and the Presidents had the game’s first run.
It stayed 1-0 until the sixth. Both teams had scoring opportunities before then but came away empty, including in the third when the Presidents had two runners in scoring position with one out but didn’t score.
“Early in a tournament there are moments that dictate how things will go for you later,” Mountain said. “In the third inning, we had chances to pile it on. With a hit or two we could have busted it open but we didn’t get them. If they would have gotten a key hit, then we would have been playing from behind, which our guys aren’t accustomed to doing.”
The Presidents finally piled it on in the sixth, when they scored five times, capped by Horvat’s three-run homer to right field, over the 325 feet sign.
W&J made it 2-0 when Tony Tamila ripped a single up the middle that scored Michael Zito. After a walk to Logan Scheider, Jason Gregovits had his long fly ball to right field misplayed and it went for a book-rule double, scoring Tamila.
Horvat, the Presidents’ leadoff hitter, followed with his three-run shot that sealed the win.
“This is only the third time I’ve hit when pitching,” Horvat said. “We tinkered with the idea at the end of the regular season and it worked out. … I like doing both. I’m more into the game when I’m doing both.”
Saint Vincent (15-17) spoiled the shutout bid when Ben Menarchek’s sacrifice fly scored Jayke Saiani in the seventh inning.
Kamden Kautz followed Horvat on the mound and threw two scoreless innings. The Presidents added an insurance run in the eighth as Scheider doubled, Gregovits singled and a fielder’s choice off the bat of Horvat allowed Scheider to cross home plate.
Horvat finished with four RBI in addition to the pitching win. It was the kind of performance Mountain envisioned when he recruited Horvat out of Penn-Trafford High School.
“We saw him as a two-way player,” Mountain said.