WPIAL baseball preview: Class by class breakdown – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Class AAAA

The win­ner will be: Plum. There’s no rea­son to pick any­one other than the first team to en­ter the post­sea­son un­de­feated (19-0) since Cal­i­for­nia two years ago and first to do so in Class AAAA since Nor­win in 2012. And of course, the Mustangs fea­ture star se­nior out­fielder/​pitcher Alex Kirill­off, a likely first-round pick in the MLB draft next month.

The scoop: Pine-Rich­land came out on top in per­haps the tough­est sec­tion and could get a boost from lefty pitcher Ryan Okuda, who only re­turned to ac­tion late last month be­cause of in­jury. … Shaler still has much of its lineup from last year’s 20-win team, but will need soph­o­more Chris­tian Seel­horst to con­tinue a strong sea­son on the mound. … Canon-McMil­lan was 6-0 in the sec­ond half of Sec­tion 5 play. … Power-hitting Peters Township outfielder Tor Sehnert entered Tuesday batting .453 with eight home runs and 26 RBIs.

His­tory les­son: With Cen­tral Cath­o­lic miss­ing the play­offs, this will be the first year the pre­vi­ous sea­son’s cham­pion can’t de­fend its ti­tle since 2007. … This year marks the 45th an­ni­ver­sary of the first ti­tle game at Three Rivers Sta­dium. In 1971, High­lands beat Ell­wood City, 6-5. There was only one clas­si­fi­ca­tion for base­ball back then.

Class AAA

The win­ner will be: Mon­tour. Class AAA looks like a wide open field, but Mon­tour fin­ished first in rug­ged Sec­tion 3 and a tough sched­ule should mean some­thing. The Spar­tans fea­ture pitcher Trent Vi­et­meier, a LSU re­cruit, but this team is much more than Vi­et­meier.

The scoop: Black­hawk is good enough to win it all and the Cou­gars seem to be peak­ing, win­ning 12 of 13 and av­er­ag­ing 7 runs in those games. … How good is Lau­rel High­lands? The Mustangs are 17-1, but played in a sus­pect sec­tion and past play­off losses bring ques­tions (they ha­ven’t won a play­off game since 2009). … West Al­le­gheny al­ways seems to make noise in the play­offs. … Mars beat out de­fend­ing PIAA cham­pion Knoch for the Sec­tion 5 ti­tle and is a team to watch.

His­tory les­son: Fif­teen years ago, Frank­lin Re­gional won the Class AAA ti­tle by de­feat­ing Mt. Leb­a­non, 9-8, in eight in­nings in the first high school game played at PNC Park. Franklin Regional won when Mike Maropis singled home Matt McAfoose in the top of the eighth. The last year the WPIAL played title games at PNC was 2003.

Class AA

The win­ner will be: Ne­shan­nock. Led by ac­com­plished ace Frank Fraschetti, who re­cently be­came just the sixth pitcher in WPIAL his­tory to reach 30 wins for his ca­reer, look for the de­fend­ing WPIAL and PIAA champs to make an­other long post­sea­son run.

The scoop: The Lancers’ tough­est com­pe­ti­tion could come from their Sec­tion 5 co-cham­pion River­side, led by Dam­bach broth­ers Ja­son and Austin, who are both hit­ting bet­ter than .400. … Avon­worth and Quaker Val­ley split the Sec­tion 1 ti­tle, but New Brigh­ton fin­ished third with four losses to those two teams by a com­bined seven runs. … Sec­tion 2 win­ner Browns­ville has only lost once since March 30, but has beaten just two teams with win­ning records. … Charle­roi could be a tough out when it pitches Jo­siah Fisher, who’s 4-3 with a 0.88 ERA. … Sec­tion 3 champ Shady Side Acad­emy closed the sea­son strong with a 10-1 vic­tory against Class AAA Deer Lakes. … Steel Val­ley, Key­stone Oaks and Seton-LaSalle beat each other up in Sec­tion 4, but Steel Val­ley en­ters with the most mo­men­tum hav­ing won the fi­nal seven sec­tion games.

His­tory les­son: There has not been a re­peat champ in Class AA since Wash­ing­ton in 1997-98.

Class A

The win­ner will be: Vin­cen­tian. The Roy­als had im­pres­sive records the past two sea­sons, but they beat up on weak com­pe­ti­tion and were first-round los­ers. This team is much bet­ter and Vin­cen­tian has played a much tougher non-sec­tion sched­ule. They are well bal­anced with pitch­ing and hit­ting.

The scoop: Greens­burg Cen­tral Cath­o­lic could re­peat as cham­pion. The Cen­tu­ri­ons’ sec­tion had some door­mats, but it’s hard to ig­nore a team that has a .399 bat­ting av­er­age and has av­er­aged 10.8 runs. … Serra lost only two games, both to GCC. … Our Lady of the Sa­cred Heart has scored 10 runs or more in nine games. … Union is a sleeper team.

His­tory les­son: Cal­i­for­nia and Carmichaels play in the same sec­tion and both are in the play­offs. Over the past 15 years, one of them has been in the cham­pi­on­ship 10 times. Carmichaels has made six ap­pear­ances and Cal­i­for­nia four.