Mt. Pleasant baseball wins, secures playoff berth for county tournament

By: Paul Schofield
Sunday, July 26, 2020 | 9:08 PM

Mt. Pleasant doubled its win total for the season Sunday in the Westmoreland County American Baseball League by playing its most complete game of the season.

Backed by the strong pitching of Joe Shrum and the timely hitting of Jonas King, Jeremiah Kitz and Shrum, Mt. Pleasant defeated West Hempfield, 6-4, in a play-in game.

A four-run fifth inning by Mt. Pleasant broke the game open. Shrum had a two-run double to highlight the inning.

“It was the second win of the season, no doubt this was a nice win for the players,” Mt. Pleasant coach Alan Wagner said. “We’ve been getting better the entire season, and we played a solid game from start to finish. You can’t count us out.”

Asher O’Connor, Shrum and Kitz had two hits each.

Shrum struck out six and walked one. He bested a solid effort by West Hempfield right-hander Marcus McCarthy.

Noah Allen had a triple and single for West Hempfield.

Mt. Pleasant opens the playoffs at 5:30 p.m. Monday at No. 1 seed Latrobe in a best-of-three series. Game 2 is 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at Mt. Pleasant.

The other best-of-3 series playoff matchups are: Derry at Murrysville; Young Township at Bushy Run and Yough vs. Hempfield East at West Hempfield.

Game 2 of the series switch home sites on Tuesday and Game 3, if necessary, will be on Wednesday.

Paul Schofield is a TribLive reporter covering high school and college sports and local golf. He joined the Trib in 1995 after spending 15 years at the Daily Courier in Connellsville, where he served as sports editor for 14 years. He can be reached at pschofield@triblive.com.

Tags: Hempfield, Mt. Pleasant, Penn-Trafford, Southmoreland