Wheeling Post 1 dominates in return to play, eyes on upcoming postseason | News, Sports, Jobs

A fully-charged Wheeling team showed no signs of rust on the Wheeling Park High School field Monday, defeating the visiting All-American team 13-0 in the Post 1 19U team’s first game since Friday.

“We played last Tuesday, Friday, then they had Saturday and Sunday off,” said Post 1 assistant coach Isaac Rine. “They had a whole weekend off, which doesn’t normally happen, but leading up to the playoffs we thought it was important to give them those couple of days off.”

Team All-American is a 16U team from Ohio.

For Wheeling, the focus was on the playoffs, with the Area One tournament set to begin next week.

“We have three region games this week — Moundsville on Wednesday and a doubleheader against Parkersburg on Saturday,” Rine said. “Those are three big games, obviously you want to be top seeded in the region and play on your home court. That’s what we’re looking forward to now — getting through this week and getting to region, hopefully winning and getting to state.”

As for Monday’s action, Post 1 slugged 11 hits, six for extra bases, while 12 players reached bases. On defense, Quinn Jamison spun five scoreless innings with one hit, while Ryan Yates went 1-2-3 in the sixth inning before the two teams called it quits.

Rine pointed to the presence of some young up-and-coming players in the dugout, who provided Post 1 with energy in the decisive victory.

“All year we’ve been swinging well and putting pressure on guys,” Rine said. “Usually it starts at the top of the order, we lay down a bunt, create some chaos and from there it goes to the big guys in the order who drive everything into the gap.”

“What helped us tonight was that we had our entire 18-man squad with us. We also had a few guys from the younger team with us today. It was a bit livelier in the team bench, they brought energy and we kept pushing.”

Alex Taylor hit a double, scored two runs and scored twice, Braxton Billick hit a base-loaded triple in the seven-run fourth inning, Jaxon Murray hit a double, scored two runs, Zade Billings hit a double, Andrew Skadra made it 3-3 with an RBI, Dillon Wilson hit an RBI double, Ryland Robb hit a pinch-hit double with two RBIs in the fifth inning and Rocco DiGiandomenico reached base three times, twice by walk, and scored three times.

There were many highlights for Post 1. The team hopes to return to the state tournament with the same faces as last year, when it won the Area One Championship but lost its first two games in the state tournament, both nerve-wracking one-point losses.

“We’re basically bringing everyone back,” Rine said. “We lost our left side of the infield, but replaced them with mature guys. They played in the outfield last year, but they’re actually infielders. Last year we made them outfielders, but this year we put them back in the infield.”

Jaxon Murray and Andrew Skadra, both Linsly products, manned the shortstop and third base positions on Monday. The Area One tournament begins on July 16.