Mar 25, 2017 3 min read

At the end of last season, Peters Township High School baseball coach Joe Maize dug into his archives looking for reasons why so many of his teams made the postseason.

The one common denominator of that success, which included WPIAL championships in 2007 and 2008, was a roster that didn’t exceed 20 players.

It’s something Maize, after a 13-8 record last year that resulted in a three-way tie for second place in Section 5-AAAA, is insisting on with the makeup of the roster for this season.

“One of the things I’ve told both kids and parents is that people have to accept their roles,” Maize said about trimming his varsity group to 16 players this year. “When you have as many players as we had before, they would get dissatisfied because of a lack of playing time. The success of our team will once again be determined by our players realizing that the team goals are more important than any individual goals they may have.”

Winning eight of their last 10 regular season games and scoring 10 or more runs in four of those contests, the Indians newly found, destructive lineup was quickly negated in the WPIAL playoffs.

After squeaking by Fox Chapel in the first round, 1-0, the bats of Peters Township again failed to produce in a quarterfinal matchup against Plum, losing 2-0.

“We were able to start putting the ball in play more often,” Maize said. “Our defense improved from the beginning of the season. The pitching came around. It was really just a combination of everything. We saw two quality starting pitchers in the playoffs. I think you have to credit them for being able to slow down our offense.”

The trimmed roster Maize is focusing on keeping throughout the season features a mix of seniority and inexperience, including the return of senior outfield and Coastal Carolina University recruit, Tor Sehnert.

Sehnert, last season’s WPIAL home run leader with eight, also carried a team-leading .450 average after getting moved up in the lineup to prevent teams from pitching around him.

A big key to Sehnert’s continued success from last year is who will join him in the lineup. The Indians still have a number of position battles.

One of those battles is taking place behind the plate after the graduation of team captain Brody Cararie. Peters Township will look to sophomores Dom Campagna and Nick Winslow to catch its seven-man pitching staff that will lean on seniors Eric Riotto and T.J. Dailey.

Riotto went 4-1 last year with a 2.53 earned run average in five starts.

Dailey kept his ERA low – at 1.52 – after splitting time in a starting role and working out of the bullpen. He also recorded two saves.

Preventing Peters Township from flirting with disaster with the new pitch-count rules issued by the PIAA will be Garrett Miller and Nolan Thompson, each of whom saw innings at the varsity level last year.

“I don’t think the new rule is going to affect us that much because we’ve been conscious of pitch counts in the past,” Maize said. “Staying healthy is really going to help us. We typically begin years by pitching by committee. Even though we have players who can pitch, which can be a strength, we have to see how they throw in varsity situations.”