Shaler-NA baseball, softball teams to square off in Tuesday’s 3 things to watch in high school sports

By: HSSN Staff
Monday, April 9, 2018 | 7:03 PM

It's a diamond doubleheader Tuesday afternoon as Shaler visits North Allegheny on neighboring fields in both baseball and softball.

All four programs are perennial powers and section rivals meeting for the first time in makeup games that were originally scheduled for 7 p.m. but wisely moved up to 4 p.m. starts because of frosty temperatures.

In softball, the Titans are still searching for their first win of the year after dropping a nonsection game to Plum and losing their Section 3-6A opener 8-7 to Seneca Valley. North Allegheny fell behind early before cruising to a 15-4 rout of North Hills in the section opener. That came after the team went 1-2 on a March trip to Florida.

The baseball version of Titans vs. Tigers is the Section 1-6A opener for both teams. North Allegheny is 2-0 after beating Wheaton, Ill., on a trip to Florida, then returning to knock off Canon-McMillan, 4-1. Shaler outscored Mt. Lebanon and Moon, 13-1, for two nonsection wins, but were outscored 24-9 in losses to Penn-Trafford, Plum and Fox Chapel.

Fab five

With heavy schedule this week for both WPIAL baseball and softball Wednesday and Friday, there are not a lot of scheduled section games Tuesday in both sports. However, there are five Trib HSSN ranked teams in section action for both baseball and softball.

Two of those baseball games are in Class 5A, and the other three involve Class 4A teams. Top-ranked Mars visits Armstrong in Section 1-5A, and No. 4 Moon hosts Chartiers Valley in Section 2-5A.

Dipping down one classification, No. 2 South Park hosts Belle Vernon in Section 3-4A, while there are a pair of ranked teams in action in Section 1-4A, as No. 3 Knoch hosts Yough and No. 5 Freeport is home to Derry.

The ranked softball teams in action Tuesday are more spread out as Class 5A top-ranked West Allegheny hosts Oakland Catholic in Section 3. Class 4A No. 2 Yough and No. 4 Belle Vernon are both on the road in Section 2 action as the Cougars visit West Mifflin and the Leopards travel to Carrick. No. 2 Ellwood City visits Freedom in Section 2-3A, and No. 1 Chartiers-Houston is at Beth-Center in Section 3-2A.

Top 10 volleys

There are four WPIAL boys volleyball matches pitting top 10 teams against each other Tuesday evening.

In Class AAA, Penn-Trafford, the 2016 district champion, 2017 runner-up and current No. 2 team, visits No. 9 Latrobe in a Section 3 match. No. 5 Seneca Valley hosts No. 10 Pine-Richland in a Section 2 clash. Hard not to have a Top 10 battle in Section 3 AAA, since five teams from that section are in this week's rankings.

In Class AA, No. 3 Deer Lakes visits No. 8 Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic in Section 2 while No. 7 Bishop Canevin hosts No. 9 Keystone Oaks in Section 3.

Don Rebel is a TribLive High School Sports Network broadcaster and staff writer. Reach him at drebel@tribweb.com.

Tags: Armstrong, Belle Vernon, Beth-Center, Chartiers Valley, Derry Area, Ellwood City, Freedom, Freeport, Knoch, Mars, North Allegheny, Oakland Catholic, Penn-Trafford, Pine-Richland, Shaler, South Park, West Allegheny, West Mifflin, Yough