Mt. Lebanon’s Graham Keen shuts down Hempfield

By: Paul Schofield
Wednesday, April 9, 2025 | 9:36 PM

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Graham Keen played a big role in helping the Mt. Lebanon baseball team reach the WPIAL 6A championship game last year.

The then-freshman along with senior David Shields, who was drafted and signed by the Kansas City Royals, gave the Blue Devils a solid one-two punch.

The 6-foot-5 sophomore right-hander pitched his best game of the season Wednesday in a Section 2-6A battle against Hempfield (2-3, 4-6). The No. 2-ranked player in the country in the 2027 class by Prep Baseball allowed two hits and two runs and struck out 11 over six innings as Mt. Lebanon rolled to a 9-2 win. Game 3 is scheduled to be played Thursday at Hempfield.

Keen dominated the Hempfield batters. He retired them in order in four of the six innings he worked. He struck out the top four Hempfield batters twice each.

“This was Graham’s best outing of the year,” Mt. Lebanon coach Patt McCloskey said. “He’s a phenomenal talent that is a pleasure to coach because he cares about winning.

“He definitely built himself up pitching to be at his best for his first section game. I cannot thank him enough for the competitive effort that he gave us.”

The Spartans’ runs came in the third inning when Ian Kovalcik was hit with a pitch. Courtesy runner Lucas Harshman moved to third on a double by Lucas Murray. Harshman then scored on a wild pitch, and Murray scored on a groundout by Chase Damaska.

Meanwhile, Mt. Lebanon not only pounded out 12 hits, four by Dane Barber, it received 10 walks and a hit batter.

“You are not going to win many games when you walk 10 guys, that is for sure,” Hempfield coach Tim Buzzard said. “Their pitcher threw really well. He is very good for a reason.

“We did not have our best in any area. They beat us in all three phases and outplayed us, outcoached us and deserved to win the game. Keen was on (today). He’s a good pitcher and player.”

The Blue Devils scored an unearned run in the second inning when Mikey Tetlow singled and scored on an error.

They opened the third inning with three consecutive hits: a double by Keen, a single by Barber and a single by Ben Kraemer (RBI).

Cole Kappeler walked, and Tetlow walked to force home Barber and make it 3-0. That walk chased Hempfield starter Kevin Bender and brought in Lucas Simmons, who retired two batters before walking Brett Hamel to force home the third run of the inning.

Maddox Yost then hit a slow roller that took a bad hop away from shortstop Quinn Wilkins to score two more runs for a 6-0 lead.

“We gave them a couple runs early,” Buzzard said. “They swung the bats well.”

After Hempfield cut the lead to 6-2, Mt. Lebanon scored a single run in the fifth inning and two more in the seventh.

“Coming into the series we were hitting .199 as a team,” McCloskey said. “We hit the ball better than we have been. Now we can go for the series sweep.”

Coming into the series, which started Monday with a 3-1 win at home, the Blue Devils (2-0, 2-6) had lost six consecutive games.

Barber added three RBIs and Yost two RBIs.

Dylan Firmstone tripled for the Spartans in the sixth inning.

Paul Schofield is a TribLive reporter covering high school and college sports and local golf. He joined the Trib in 1995 after spending 15 years at the Daily Courier in Connellsville, where he served as sports editor for 14 years. He can be reached at pschofield@triblive.com.

Tags: Hempfield, Mt. lebanon