Monroeville Junior Legion team earns trip to regional tournament

The Monroeville Junior Legion baseball team members were road warriors through the Westmoreland County league regular season and playoffs.

The team played just one home game — an 8-2 victory over Rockwood from Somerset County at Gateway High School on July 9 with a trip to the Western Regional tournament on the line.

Field-availability issues at the high school and Gateway Middle School prompted Monroeville to play an away schedule.

Coach Matt Dunsmore said despite the lopsided slate, the team handled its business with poise and determination as they clinched a spot in the regional playoffs.

“The guys showed all season that they can compete with anyone,” Dunsmore said.

“The guys have played with a lot of confidence. We were in a lot of close games. Pitching and defense is the name of the game, and we’ve done both well. We’ve kind of hit in streaks this season, but we (headed into regionals) with hot bats. Our last four or five games (before regionals), we strung together double digits in hits or almost double digits. The guys peaked at the right time offensively.”

The eight-team regional tournament in Punxsutawney was to begin Friday.

Monroeville was to open with a pool-play game against Punxsutawney followed by games in its pool against Oil City on Saturday and Westmoreland County champion Penn-Trafford on Sunday.

It entered regional play with a 12-5 overall record. Westmoreland runner-up Connellsville also qualified for regionals.

The top two teams in each of the two pools advanced to Monday’s championship or consolation games. The top three teams from the Western Regional advanced to states starting Friday.

All of the regional games were to be contested past the deadline for this week’s edition.

“We just played really well together as a team all season,” said rising Gateway sophomore Noah Colberg, a pitcher, third baseman and outfielder.

“We’ve fed off of each other’s energy in the dugout and on the field. We were able to push through any slumps we had. We wanted to take everyone’s field as our own as we didn’t have a home field except for that one game.”

Monroeville’s playoff road to regionals began with a 4-3 win over Murrysville in the quarterfinals. It then fell to No. 1 Penn-Trafford, 11-8, in the semifinals.

A forfeit by Bethel Park in the other semifinal left Monroeville without a consolation-final opponent. Instead of heading to regionals directly, the team was required to face the first-place team — Rockwood — from the Somerset league in a best-of-three series to determine the final Western Regional qualifier.

After the 8-2 home win, Monroeville beat Rockwood, 7-2, on July 11 to complete the sweep.

“The Somerset league didn’t have enough teams to earn a qualifying spot to regionals, so (Rockwood) had to beat us in the best-of-three,” Dunsmore said.

“The kid embraced the goal of getting to regionals, and they were going to do whatever it took, no matter how many games it was going to take.”

Monroeville comprises players who are entering 11th, 10th, ninth and eighth grades. Some of them played on the Gateway Middle School team this spring and others played together on the Gators JV team.

A group of four others played for Central Catholic.

“They grew up together, not necessarily on the same teams, but they played in the same in-house program, so they know each other,” Dunsmore said.

“This has been one of their last chances to play together, especially for the 16-year-olds. They have definitely taken advantage of the opportunity this summer. That’s the beauty of American Legion baseball. You have to all live in the same town. They really came together to represent where they are from.”

Dunsmore said the Westmoreland County league came back strong this summer after canceling the 2020 season because of limitations caused by the covid pandemic.

“A lot of people in the Monroeville area really helped the kids find opportunities to still play last summer,” Dunsmore said.

“We believe Westmoreland County is the best league around. That’s why three teams are at regionals from the league. It is so competitive with so many solid teams like Penn-Trafford, Plum and Murrysville. You have to pitch well, throw strikes, play good defense, make the routine plays and make sure you hit the ball. Our guys really benefited from that good competition.”