Neshaminy High wrote its own story — and ended it with its first state baseball title
Neshaminy has been “knocking on the door” to a state title, but couldn’t get over the semifinal hump. Now, the program earned its first PIAA 6A championship.
Neshaminy baseball has been waiting for a state championship since its inception, so having to wait another three-and-a-half hours wasn’t going to stop the team from accomplishing what it set out to do.
Following a rain delay at Penn State’s Medlar Field at Lubrano Park, Neshaminy won the first state title in program history with a 7-3 win over Butler Senior High School in the PIAA Class 6A championship last Thursday.
Head coach Dan Toner said from when the team arrived, and through the delay, he knew Neshaminy was coming home with the plaque.
“We felt it when we got there.” Toner said. “[The players] were studying film, talking about ways to be successful, [and] visualization. So, they were focused from the second they arrived, all the way through.”
These techniques were part of the team’s pregame conversations about creating its own narrative. Toner said Neshaminy’s football coach, Nick Felus, sent him a video about how creating your own narrative is what separates elite athletes and winners.
Toner preached this to his team early on, and the players bought into it. Even during a stalemate through the first half of the game, Neshaminy knew it was going to break through.
That breakthrough finally came in the back-half of the game.
Tied 1-1 through the bottom of the fifth, a single from senior Dan Marable brought senior Michael Welsh home from second to give Neshaminy a 2-1 lead, followed by three more runs in that frame. The next inning they added two insurance runs.
In Toner’s nine years as the head coach, Neshaminy has made the PIAA tournament six times, losing in the state semifinal in both 2019 and 2025.
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“We were kind of knocking on the door a couple times,” Toner said, “But to finally get over that hill and make it and then actually win it, was the feeling everybody chases and the goal everybody chases when they start playing, start coaching.”
Toner said coaches Jess Toner, his father, and Jim Strickler, who have been coaching in the area for more than 40 years, have been waiting for this state title longer than anyone else.
Strickler was the head coach at Truman before joining Neshaminy’s coaching staff. Jess Toner was also with Truman, as well as Pennsbury and Council Rock, before joining his son at Neshaminy.
They’ve experienced league and district championships, but states were a new experience for them.
“Watching them finally get that moment was absolutely fantastic for myself and I’m sure everybody else involved,” Toner said.
The moment also meant a lot to the players who got a taste of the PIAA playoffs before.
Third baseman Brandon Lall, shortstop and pitcher Chase Bonner, second baseman Mike Sassano, and first baseman and pitcher Noah Wallace have experienced state playoffs for most of their careers.
They have been starters since their sophomore year, when Neshaminy won the Suburban One League title in 2024 and made it to the state quarterfinal. Toner said they had a good idea of what the “intensity and competition” was like on this stage.
“The experience played a huge part,” Toner said. “Once they got to the game that they really couldn’t get past [the state semifinal], they knew what they had to do to be able to accomplish that and they were able to do it.”
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With three sophomores and five juniors on the state championship team returning next year, there’s a solid group of players who have gained this experience as well. After learning from the upperclassmen, Toner said it’s their turn to pass it on to the younger players and get back to the state championship.
“That’s what they’re going to be chasing from now on,” Toner said. “So right away, whether the skill level is the same or not, whether they’re as successful, they know what it takes and they have that feeling of what they want to accomplish again. That’s a huge part of being successful.”