Legion finals: Blackhawk gives it the college try for title

NORTH SEWICKLEY TWP. – Joe Lopez rattled off several reasons why he returned to play American Legion baseball as a 19-year-old who had just completed his freshman year of college. One of those reasons was “unfinished business.”

In the spring of 2012 as a senior at Blackhawk High School, Lopez experienced the thrill of winning a WPIAL championship. But later that summer, the community’s Legion team lost to RiverCity in the Beaver County semifinals.

After being eliminated, Lopez and three other 2012 Blackhawk grads decided they’d gladly come back and play Legion ball as 19-year-olds if manager Bob Amalia asked.

Amalia did ask Lopez, Brendan Kearney, Nick Martin and Adam Rousseau to return, and on Monday, Blackhawk took care of that unfinished business.

Right-hander Cody Bain pitched a two-hit shutout and helped his cause with two singles as Blackhawk beat RiverCity 5-0 to win the county title. Leading the nine-hit attack were three of the veterans.

Kearney, who leads off and plays third base, had two singles, a walk, a sacrifice and two RBIs in four plate appearances.

Lopez, who bats clean-up and plays shortstop, went 2 for 3 with a sacrifice and run scored.

Martin, who bats fifth and plays left field, went 2 for 4 with a run scored.

“I knew we’d have a good team that would make a run for the championship, and that’s what we did,” said Kearney, who played club baseball as a freshman at Ohio University.

“Along with (Brendan) McKay, us three have helped us produce a lot of runs,” said Martin, who played basketball last season at Washington & Jefferson. “We helped produce a lot of runs last year on the high school teams.

“We had heard that Blackhawk had the pitching but struggled a little bit at the plate this year in high school. So we knew if we came back and played Legion ball, we’d help when it came to scoring runs.”

“It’s a great program. It’s a great group of guys. We have a great coach,” added Lopez, the starting shortstop at Clarion this spring. “And I think the competition in Beaver County is great. We had unfinished business. Plus, we’re hosting the regionals this year. So, it was a chance to play a lot of good baseball.”

Blackhawk (20-2) and RiverCity (16-7) will both play in the Region 6 tournament that starts Saturday at Chippewa Park.

As the host team, Blackhawk would have made the regionals even if it didn’t make the Beaver County playoffs and claim its 10th championship -- and eighth since 2001 -- in Amalia’s 26 seasons as manager.

Even though it was swept by Blackhawk in the best-of-three series, RiverCity gets into the regionals as the No. 1 seed out of Beaver County.

On Saturday when the Region 6 tourney starts, RiverCity figures to be a much better team than the one it fielded in the two losses to Blackhawk (a 4-0, one-hit loss to McKay on Sunday was the other). In those two losses, five key players were on vacation.

“We were a few horses shy,” manager Doug Falk said. “We tried to fill in with Colt League players. These past two games weren’t indicative of the kind of team we have. It will be a whole new ball game starting Saturday.”

Unlike several other Beaver County Legion teams this summer, Blackhawk has not had a problem with players missing games due to vacation or any other reason.

“We’ve been lucky,” Lopez said. “We have a lot of dedicated players who are choosing baseball over anything else.”