Creekside, Baird Brothers teams playing in Knoxville

July 16, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

STRUTHERS

The NABF Junior World Series for players 16-and-under is set to take place today-Sunday in Knoxville, Tenn., with two Mahoning Valley teams chasing a national championship.

Creekside Fitness, Little B League tournament champions, earned the area’s automatic bid while Baird Brothers, the league regular-season champs, secured the second slot by virtue of capturing the regional championship this past Sunday at Bob Cene Park.

Both teams were members of the league’s Livi Division with Baird Brothers posting the best overall regular-season mark (22-5, .815) of its 10 overall members.

Creekside (28-10) will be making a third World Series appearance in four years and hopes to add another piece of hardware to place next to its 2012 trophy.

Baird Brothers on the other hand is making its initial World Series foray.

“This is great for the players. They’ve worked hard all season, they’re a tight-knit group and want to win it all while traveling in the process,” Creekside manager Bubba Boughner said. “Pitching and solid defense have been our strengths all season while timely hitting was big at the tail end. I feel as if we are coming together and peaking at just the right time.”

As a team, Creekside pitchers allowed just 62 earned runs (2.71 earned run average) and 82 overall in 26 regular season games.

Pitchers combined to toss three shutouts while limiting opponents to a paltry .212 average.

Eric Sapp (2-3, 2.88 ERA) is expected to start the opening game with Dom Pecchia (.308 batting average) catching.

Pad O’Shaughnessy (.455) is the first baseman, Tony Chiaro (.304) is at second, Bryce Richey (.323) is the shortstop with Dan Klase (.300) at third. The infield committed just 31 errors and turned eight double plays.

Conversely, team speed prevented Creekside from hitting into a double play.

The outfield consists of Donald Drummond (.200) in left, Noah Suarez (.301, 12 stolen bases) in center and Jaydon Johnson (.237) in right.

Pitcher Nat Ross, catcher/third baseman Jake Wick, all-around player Anthony Laird and outfielder Dominic Drummond round out the team.

Tourney pick-ups include pitchers Aidan Thompson (2-3, 4.45) and Kevin Pollock (.397, 12 stolen bases) of Dura Edge; Jake Harsany (5-1, 1.36) of Rudzik Excavating and Dylan McAvoy 1-1, 2.10) of Roby Lee’s.

Baird Brothers (32-8) punched its ticket by capturing the recent NABF regional crown, defeating the Cleveland Stingrays, 17-2, a team that will join both Youngstown entries in Knoxville.

Manager Angelo Bianco is hoping that the offensive onslaught in the title game continues.

Despite success in the regular season when they won their first 13 games and 21 of their first 22 played, the Lumberjacks fell to Creekside in the league tournament, lost their initial regional game and then battled back to win the final three regional games.

It was after that first tourney loss when Bianco decided to tweak his line-up in order to kick-start his team.

“This team has tremendous resolve, proving that we could recover from losing the league championship only to refocus on playing fundamental baseball,” Bianco said. “We have a lot of excellent hitters, however, they were pressing entirely too much so I felt that a change might do them good. We moved centerfielder J.J. Nicholas, one of our few 16 year-old players to the leadoff spot and that’s when we caught fire.”

The team is led by its four, 16 year-olds and in addition to Nicholas (.217), others include first baseman Danny Williams (.388, 15 RBIs); shortstop Colin Roth (.340, 17 runs scored) and second sacker Vincent Monico (.321, 18 runs).

Pitchers that Bianco will be counting on include Jack Rafoth (1-0, 1.54), a closer without a blown save all season; middle reliever Kyle Ricketts (2-0, 0.44); Roth (2-0, 2.67); Drew Havrilla (3.28); Hayden Sherwood (1-0, 0.43), who also plays first base and tournament additions Dylan Dickey (2-2, 2.15) from Roth Brothers and Joe Gasior of Southside Recycling.

Rounding out the tournament roster offensively is third baseman and son of the coach, Nick Bianco (.339, team leading 20 RBIs); catcher Coleman Stauffer (.500, team-leading 28 hits), son of assistant coach Dave Stauffer, who managed Creekside Fitness to the NABF 14-U World Series title last season; right fielder Blake Benyo (.358); Havrilla (.364); left fielder Luke Cardillo (.361, seven stolen bases), Rafoth (.346); Kyle Ricketts (.361); Joe Faber (.409); Isiah Lucas (.314) and Sherwood (.322, 22 runs).

The NABF Sophomore Division World Series for 14-and-under players will take place July 23-26, also in Knoxville with manager Steve Leslie’s Astro Falcons (36-10) having already garnered the league’s automatic bid.