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Top Stories of 2014: #10 - Sub-.500 Seneca Valley Makes Run to State Semifinals

December 15, 2014

By Jacob Gill
Philadelphia Region Director of Scouting

The Seneca Valley Raiders finished the 2014 regular season tied for third place in WPIAL class AAAA Section 1 with a nondescript 5-5 section record.  They also went 1-6 in out-of-section play to finish the regular season with six wins and eleven losses. Not once did they win back-to-back games. Only two of their victories came against teams with winning records. It wasn't exactly how things were expected to play out for the team ranked fifth in the state in our Preseason Super 16 for PIAA class AAAA. And yet, they managed to earn the sixteenth and final berth to the WPIAL playoffs.

Then Connor Coward was cleared to pitch.

Coward, currently a freshman at Virginia Tech, suffered a preseason back injury that kept him from pitching during the regular-season. The ace right-hander's return allowed fellow senior Alex Hajduk, now at Penn State Behrend, and the rest of the pitching staff to slot back into their expected roles coming into the season.

What followed was a six-game winning streak in which the Raiders out-scored their opponents 35-13, captured their third WPIAL tournament championship in four seasons, and stormed into the PIAA class AAAA semifinals before finally bowing out in a 3-2 loss to Conestoga.

All of that amounts to the 2014 Seneca Valley Raiders becoming one of the best .500 teams (they ultimately finished 12-12) in state history.

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