Lower Burrell Legion team makes most of busy schedule

From June 5 to July 3, the Lower Burrell American Legion baseball team played 18 District 31 league games.

It was a four-week sprint to the finish, and while the Post 868 Bulldogs, one of the younger teams in the 14-team league, didn’t finish with the record it had hoped, there were several positives the players and coaches took from the organization’s first season.

“We came into the season expecting it to go by so quickly,” Lower Burrell coach Steve Scheftic said.

“We knew it was going to be a lot of games in a short amount of time. We had some families concerned about that. But I told them it is not a long season, and by the time you blink, it will be over.”

The start of the season for the Bulldogs was delayed until June 5 because of the Burrell high school team’s appearance in the WPIAL and PIAA tournaments.

The Bucs fell to Fairview, 7-3, in the PIAA first round June 3 at Mercyhurst College. Ten from the varsity playoff roster transitioned to the Legion schedule and joined several younger players in the Burrell system, returning collegiate player Ryan Scheftic and Jonathan Walker from neighboring Kiski Area.

Lower Burrell opened the season with a 3-2 victory in eight innings over playoff qualifier Hempfield East.

It added wins over Yough, Somerset and Unity.

Somerset and Yough earned the seventh and eighth seeds, respectively, for the playoffs.

Points were used to determine how teams finished in each division.

Lower Burrell ended up 4-15, earning 16 points for its four victories. It also picked up two points for each of its 14 losses on the field. A forfeit loss to Derry because of not having enough numbers for the early-season matchup took away five points.

“We were pretty impressed, both the players and the coaches, with the quality of the opponents, not that it was totally surprising,” Coach Scheftic said.

“It was a long time since I was involved in Legion baseball. We were young compared to many of the other teams, and we knew that going in. During warm-ups, you would often times look over and would see some more mature young men. We saw that other teams in the league who were even near the bottom of the standings, they could hit pretty well with little bit of power. It is nice to see the league is in pretty good shape.”

Scheftic said despite the compact schedule, pitching wasn’t an issue as there were close to a dozen players willing and able to take the mound.

“I like how much work the pitchers got,” he said. “Not too many of them were overworked with the way we balanced it. We were able to handle a lot of baseball games in a short period of time. We did have one pitcher who also caught for us who had a little bit of a tired arm. He was pulling a little double duty early, and that was tough. We had to sit him for a couple weeks, which hurt a little bit.”

Scheftic said it isn’t totally fair to judge the season just on the wins and losses.

“A lot of the young players got a chance to witness and compete at a level they hadn’t competed at before, and they will be better prepared moving forward,” he said.

“Despite the early forfeit, we were able to keep the team together, and I felt that a lot of the players bought in more and more as the season neared the end even though we weren’t winning. They saw the benefits of playing at this level. We as a coaching staff also learned and are better for some of the mistakes we made in the preseason and during the season. We look forward to rectifying them pretty quickly.”

Of the 18 players on the roster, four will be aging out of the Legion program: Ryan Scheftic, Justin Hyland, Mike McKay and Dylan McKallip.

“Our goal is to make sure we are providing a team in the school district area that upholds a competition level to the other teams in the league,” Coach Scheftic said.

“That is one of our top responsibilities. We want to do all that we can to put the best team on the field.”

In addition to the league playoff games, District 31 will host a player showcase July 18 at Pitt Greensburg. Several local college coaches will be on hand to evaluate the league talent.

Lower Burrell, Scheftic said, also will have representatives take part in a District 31 all-star game with teams representing the Western and Eastern divisions.