Mediaboss Marketing

Updated 5 minutes ago

The Plum Senior American Legion team made its 2017 summer season debut last week against North Allegheny at Plum High School, and despite a 12-1 setback, coach Mark Pivik said his players showed signs they can compete in the revamped Allegheny County League.

We struggled a little bit in some areas, but this team is coming around, said Pivik, who coached the Plum Colt baseball team last year.

They have the talent to field, hit, run the bases, pitch, everything. They just have to keep coming together, get past the early-inning and early-season jitters, continue to break the ice and go for it.

While Plum was playing its first game, North Allegheny already had several games under its belt and, Pivik said, was the sharper of the two teams.

A game against Upper St. Clair two nights earlier was postponed.

Plum was scheduled to return to action Monday at Plum High School against South Allegheny. The game was to be contested past the deadline for this week's edition.

A game Thursday against South Park was in jeopardy of being postponed.

It all depended on how South Park's high school team fared in its game Monday against Blackhawk in the PIAA state playoffs. That game also was to conclude past this week's deadline.

Ten teams constitute this year's Allegheny County league. The squads are in two divisions.

Plum is slated to play two games against South Allegheny, Elizabeth Forward, Forest Hills, Upper St. Clair and North Allegheny and single games against South Park, Montour, Bethel Park and Baldwin.

Pivik said he was pretty familiar with the team coming into the season as seven players Jordan Bruno, Kenny and James Rose, Spencer Wilson, Martin Pivik, Vincenzo Tavella and Art Palandro were a part of last year's Plum Colt team.

That team, one of the youngest in the league, produced a 10-8 regular season and advanced all the way to the best-of-three championship series before falling in two games to league power Delmont.

Five members of the Legion squad Joey DePastino, Dakoda Dialoiso, Brenden Kurzdorfer, Garick Poe and Tyler Wood came up from last year's Plum Junior Legion team that went 7-11 in the Westmoreland County league regular season and suffered a tough first-round playoff loss.

Gabriel Esposto, Colin Barrett, Pete Flaherty and Jordan Zatawski also are members of the team.

The team has come together with players from Oakmont, Monroeville and Penn Hills, in addition to the ones who live in Plum.

By rule, if a player lives in a community that does not field an American Legion team, he can play for the closest team that does sponsor Legion baseball.

Coach Pivik said the Plum team is still pretty young for Senior Legion standards with only three seniors (18-year-olds) on the roster.

The remainder are 17 and, in some cases, 16.

We want to go out, have fun and see what the season brings us, coach Pivik said.

It's a group of boys who know how to play the game and have fun together. We know we are up against some pretty stiff competition but the boys are ready for the challenge.

Michael Love is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at mlove@tribweb.com or via Twitter @Mlove_Trib.

See the original post here:
Young Plum Legion team off to rough start - Tribune-Review