Sports
USC Baseball: Primed And Ready
In a game that rewards patience, Upper St. Clair's baseball team will need plenty as rainouts dominate their early schedule.
The Upper St. Clair baseball team has been dealing with postponement after postponement this season. Six of their seven games have been rained out.
"I've never seen anything like it. We've never had the season pushed back this much," head coach Jerry Malarkey said.
The team has only been able to make up one of the postponed games, a 14-4 district victory over Canon-McMillan last Thursday.
Find out what's happening in Upper St. Clairfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The season was to begin with a home game against Hempfield on March 25. After a pair of cancellations, the Panthers fittingly began their season outside of rainy Pittsburgh with an 11-8 win against Spartansburg in South Carolina. The victory got the team's feet wet, so to speak.
By this point, the Panthers should have played five district games. Postponements to Baldwin, McKeesport and Bethel Park will all need to be made up. A home game against Peters Township Wednesday afternoon at 4:15 p.m. is in serious doubt due to, you guessed it, the weather forecast. If that game needs to be postponed, their next match-up will be at home Friday at 4:15 p.m. against Pine-Richland.
Find out what's happening in Upper St. Clairfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
"You can only get so much work done inside, we really need to start getting outside," coach Malarkey said.
This Panther team is loaded with upperclassmen who want to play more than just two games in three weeks. The pitching staff is deep, including seniors Matt Fraudin, Erik Wolstem and Steve Krolesyk. Juniors Mike Wilcox and Steve Gannon will also see a lot of innings.
With just two games under their belt, innings are not something that has been plentiful for USC's baseball team that has high expectations this year. It's all going to have to come together fast. At some point, there will be a lot of games in a short period of time to make up for all the cancellations.
Last year, the Panthers finished 13-7 overall, and 7-3 in section play. They won the section title and they advanced all the way to the WPIAL semifinals before losing. With a starting line-up filled only with juniors and seniors, nobody will be happy when the season ends unless they have advanced past that point.
USC won 7 of their last 8 games to finish off the regular season last year. That's something the team is hoping to continue into the first part of this season.
The weather is throwing them an early curveball, but if the team remains patient they have a real chance to "knock it out of the ballpark" this season.
