Young Township Legion looks for strong pitching down stretch

Like five other teams in the Westmoreland American Legion baseball standings, Young Township sits in the middle of the pack with six wins.

Young Township is 6-4, but it is tied with two other teams for the fewest games played because of weather cancellations. But no matter the amount of games, Young Township is still in the hunt for the playoffs.

“We’re playing pretty decent baseball right now,” coach Jack Yard said. “Just like everyone else, we have our moments. But, overall, our offense has been carrying us. We’ve hit the ball pretty well, and we’ve had some pretty decent pitching as well.”

Young Township has scored 58 runs, tied for third in the league with Kiski Valley. It only trails Bushy Run (74) and Hempfield East, which has 92 runs and leads the league at 10-1-1.

The top of lineup leads Young Township. Hitting out of the No. 3 hole, Yard’s son, Braden, is batting over .500. Behind Braden, Ethan Prugh and Anthony Bertilino have been picking up the pieces in the Nos. 4 and 5 spots. The offense hasn’t been paced by home runs or extra-base hits but with timely hitting and moving base to base.

“With the wooden bats and the big fields, it’s a little bit of a challenge,” Yard said. “So it’s just been a lot of stringing hits together, and our one through five hitters have been pretty solid for us.”

The offense can only do so much, though, and Yard has been able to rely on his pitchers. Blake Fairman, Travis Stiffey, Nathan Slapinsky, Ethan Prugh and others have been carrying the load.

“I preach to them every game, throw strikes and play defense. That will keep us in ball games,” Yard said. “We have our innings just like everyone else, but for the most part we have been able to throw strikes and play pretty good defense.”

Prugh recently tossed a complete game in a 9-1 win over Kiski Valley that allowed Young Township to save more of its pitchers for the stretch run. That type of performance is something Yard hopes for as the regular season winds down. Because of the amount of games postponed by weather, Young Township will have a compact schedule the rest of the way.

“We have an absolute train wreck going on with the weather right now,” Yard said. “Eight games left in nine days. So it’s tough.”

Young Township still has games against, Unity, Hempfield East twice, Bushy Run, Latrobe and Yough. Although it will be a tough schedule, Yard knows what he is looking for from his team.

“If I can get some quality pitching and my starters can run deep, I’m comfortable that we’ll be very competitive,” Yard said. “But the league is competitive, so any given night I think anyone can beat anyone. So it just comes down to the timely hitting for us.”