Aces leading McGuffey, Trinity baseball teams to fast starts

If George Linck and Shawn Allen were salesmen in a used car lot, they might have a lot of success.
Their baseball teams are certainly buying what they’re selling.
But the two have very different selling tactics despite facing drastically similar situations – Linck in his first season as McGuffey’s baseball coach and Allen in his third season at Trinity. Both programs have been struggling in recent years.
“What happened last year really flat out stinks,” Linck said of the Highlanders’ 3-16 record. “We don’t care about that. This is a new year. We aren’t ever going to look back and are only going to look forward.”
Forward thinking has led McGuffey (3-0, 4-2) to three consecutive wins entering last night’s section game against Waynesburg. A 9-3 road win over Beth-Center Monday marked only the second time the Highlanders had won three section games in a single season in the last 13 years.
Linck and his coaching staff has guided McGuffey into a spot it hasn’t ventured to in a long time – first place after the first three weeks of the season.
“These kids want to win,” Linck said. “The turnout for offseason workouts was great. We’ve had outstanding pitching and timely hitting. We’ve stressed fundamentals. I believe old-school fundamentals are what work best for high school players. I also knew it was important that we win our first game.”
The Highlanders got that first win over Chartiers-Houston and haven’t looked back, just like what their coach talked about. Their only losses came against teams in higher classifications. They have defeated Keystone Oaks, Charleroi and Beth-Center in the section, still needing to play Southmoreland and Washington. Both have no section victories.
Success has started on the mound for McGuffey, especially starting pitcher Ryan Sullivan. The junior has already pitched three complete games with an ERA under 2.00.
“He is extremely good at control and locating his pitches,” Linck said of Sullivan. “He’s not overpowering but has control over all of his pitches.”
But Linck admits for the Highlanders to have their first winning season since 2004, they have to improve defensively. They committed seven errors that led to a loss against Mt. Pleasant and committed eight combined miscues in the wins over Charleroi and Beth-Center.
“I feel like we’ve really been able to fly under the radar,” Linck said about his team that has no seniors. “We need to develop a winning attitude and tradition.”
An attitude of expecting to win was what caught fire with Trinity in the second half of the 2018 season. After starting 1-6, the Hillers pushed eventual WPIAL Class 5A runner-up Mars in a first-round playoff game but fell 1-0 – a game that made the wait for this season longer for Allen.
“The hardest thing coming in when you are a new coach is the kids buying into the new game plans and philosophies,” Allen said. “It has taken the better part of a full year and a half before the kids bought in completely. Last year, midway through section play, we started playing well as a team. Every game we got better. The excitement (for this season) was there. We felt like we were scratching at our potential.”
Ten games into this season and before last night’s battle for first place with West Allegheny, Trinity (3-0, 7-3) had won in all different ways. The Hillers have scored 17 runs twice, 10 runs once and nine runs in another game. In their last three wins, the Hillers have held opponents to six total runs.
“That’s the great part – we’ve seen both sides of it,” Allen said. “We have see what our hitting potential is and what we do when we put the ball in play. We can do whatever we need to do in certain situations. That gives us confidence going into every game.”
The emergence of Camden Zaken has provided a lot of that confidence. Zaken has a 3-0 pitching record with a 1.67 ERA and has struck out 23 batters in 21 innings. Entering last night’s game, he led Trinity’s starters with a .440 batting average.
“He’s just been amazing,” Allen said. “He can control the game. He has a nice pickoff move to keep runners close and a nice curveball. He’s not a big kid but as a real sneaky fastball.”
The Hillers are in search of their first winning season since 2013.
“Our hitting has been decent, but I don’t think we are hitting at our potential yet,” Allen said. “But we are putting it together and playing as nine pretty well. It’s about getting invited to the dance. We want to make noise once we get(in the playoffs).”