Uniontown looking for three-peat in Fayette American Legion playoffs
The Fayette American Legion baseball playoffs will kick off Friday with Uniontown looking for a three-peat.
Coach Brad Yohman’s team enters the eight-team double elimination tournament as the top seed.
“We have to go into it with the same approach,” Yohman said. “We need to take it one game at a time and not look down the road.
“We have to be aware of the pitch-count rule. We will play a game every day, weather permitting, so we can get the tournament in before the regional starts.”
Uniontown won its first 14 games in league play before a 10-9 setback to Carmichaels (6-7) on Monday spoiled its chances at a perfect regular season in league play.
Yohman’s team played 12 games outside of league play and finished the regular season at 24-3.
“We were the No. 2 seed last year and won the tournament, so anything can happen in the playoffs,” Yohman said. “It will be interesting to see how things go with the new pitch-count rule because it becomes more of a chess match.”
Yohman is not sure whom he will start when his team plays the winner of tonight’s play-in game between Farmington (1-9) at Jefferson-Morgan (1-9) but he has a starting rotation that consists of Zach Uhazie, Luke Paull, Hudson Novak, Mason McManus and Ian Edenfield. Uhazie and Paull played this past college season at Fairmont State University while Novak has committed to playing for La Roche College.
Evan Voyten, Greg Lancaster and Matt Santilli have started for Uniontown, while Derek Gaisbauer and Bernie Yocabet have pitched in relief to give Yohman plenty of arms to work with.
“We have depth and are battled tested with the amount of games we play but we have to produce,” Yohman said.
“We found out against Carmichaels that if you don’t come in ready to play a game you will lose.”
Shortstop Troy Kifer is another Uniontown player who was part of the Falcons during his freshman year of college.
“We are glad to get a few days off after playing a good bit of games the last few weeks,” Yohman said.
Smithfield-Fairchance (11-3) wasn’t able to get past Uniontown in the regular season, but coach Mike Simon’s team defeated third-seeded Connellsville on June 30 to assure itself the No. 2 seed.
Smithfield-Fairchance was scheduled to host Waynesburg in its opening game of the tournament as of Monday evening.
“I like the spot we are in,” Simon said. “We earned it, and after starting off the year at 1-2, we are 10-1. We would have definitely liked the No. 1 spot but it’s just a number and seed.
“You have to go out there and play. We have played every team close this year, and it will be a battle no matter who we play.”
Smithfield-Fairchance has benefited from strong pitching with Nate Bricker, Willie Palmer and Sam Hlatky leading the way. Austin Bergman has also gotten time on the mound.
“Our pitching has come around and we have been playing really well in the field,” Simon said. “Our hitting has been good enough, but we make the most out of our at-bats and find a way to score runs. We will be ready to go.”
Waynesburg has strong pitching at the top of its rotation in brothers Hunter and Luke Robinson.
Carmichaels has wins over the No. 1 seed and No. 3 seed, but lost to Belle Vernon and Waynesburg. It will travel to Rowes Run to play Colonial 3.
“We like where we are at now,” Carmichaels coach Andy Barrish said. “We are going with Lane Zekir against Colonial. He is our top guy and we are going to get the most out of him that we can.
“We have to be ready to hit, especially at their field. We beat them on the road and they beat us on the road, so we know that anything can happen.”
In addition to Zekir, Carmichaels relies on pitchers Brad Ruse and Logan Mayhle, and Joel Spishock is a quality hitter and defensive player.
Connellsville hosts Belle Vernon at Thomas E. Sankovich Field in its opener. It suffered losses to Uniontown, Carmichaels, Smithfield-Fairchance and Belle Vernon in the last two weeks, but has shown that it can be a dangerous team.
Jacob Ansell, Shawn Smith, Arik Nicholson, Elijah Small, Mark Prinkey, Corey Fogle and Austin Petragila are a few of the arms that coach Joe Bonadio throws. Fogle, Small, Prinkey and Nicholson also play in the field when not pitching. Fogle played college baseball as a freshman at California University of Pennsylvania.
Belle Vernon counters with pitchers Joel Engstrom, Nick Kingsland and Jake Rathway.
The games are scheduled to being at 6 p.m., with the exception of the game at Uniontown which will be at 7:05 p.m., and the higher seeded team will host.