Blackhawk pitcher still tough to beat

CHIPPEWA TWP. -- Sunday when Bob Amalia was inducted into the Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame, he expressed his gratitude for the many people who've influenced his outstanding run as a baseball coach. Among those he thanked was one of his fiercest rivals.

That would be Hopewell's Joe Colella.

Since 1988 when he became manager at Blackhawk's American Legion team, Amalia has matched wits against the wily Colella so many times. In legion, Blackhawk and Hopewell have been the most dominant teams in the Beaver County league for years.

In high school, Blackhawk hasn't always played in the same section as Hopewell. But they are this year. And including Thursday's 13-5 Blackhawk win over Hopewell, Amalia is 2-0 this season against Colella.

"We're such good friends," Amalia said after a win that moved Blackhawk (9-2) closer to the WPIAL Section 1-AAA title. "He's always there for me. We talk all the time. He's been a mentor for me. That's why I mentioned Joe at the Hall of Fame dinner.

"He's a great coach. His teams are always prepared and they always play hard."

Obviously, Amalia and Colella come from different generations and different backgrounds.

Colella, who's now in his 48th season as Hopewell's coach, has always been a baseball guy. He starred at Rochester High School (he hit .410 as a senior in 1949) and once batted .615 as a senior at Geneva College.

Amalia, who was hired as Blackhawk's baseball coach in 1999, has a basketball background. A 1974 Blackhawk grad, he started three years on the Cougars' hoops teams and played basketball for two years at Penn State Beaver. After college, he spent 16 years as the top assistant for John Miller's dynasties.

But now, he's a Hall of Fame baseball coach.

When asked what he likes about Amalia, Colella basically said the thing Amalia said about him. Blackhawk's teams are always well-prepared. They play hard.

And ....

"You pretty much know what he's going to do because he does what I do," said Colella, a 1987 inductee into the Beaver County Sports Hal of Fame and a 2011 inductee into the WPIAL Hall of Fame.

In other words, these teams are almost always fundamentally sound.

"If you watch, we do a lot of things they do," Amalia said. "We bunted around six times today."

Blackhawk borrowed a page out of Colella's book Thursday. Hopewell teams have always been known to master the little things that means so much like using the sacrifice bunt.

On Thursday, however, Hopewell didn't have one of its better days. The Vikings are very young with several sophomores playing key roles. In the showdown against Blackhawk, Hopewell looked like a young team by committing four errors, failing to execute a few bunts and having two runners picked off.

Still, Hopewell is still in second place in the section at 7-3. Colella can only hope his young team handles a challenging last week of the season when it plays four games in five days.

"Hopewell is good," Amalia said. "They just didn't play their best game today."

Regardless of what happens the rest of the way in the high school season, Amalia and Colella will see each other again this summer in legion ball.

With eight days remaining in the regular season, Blackhawk and Hopewell are running 1-2 in the "super section." Those two front-runners have gotten to that enviable position on the strength of young arms.

The ace for Blackhawk (8-2) is Brendan McKay, a mere freshman who just might be the best pitcher in WPIAL Section 1-AAA.

"I would say he is," said Joe Collella, who, considering his 48-year run as coach at Hopewell, knows a thing or two about high school baseball.

McKay, who's only 15 years old, sports a 4-0 record. He's a 6-foot-1, 165-pound left-hander who's struck out 40 batters and only walked eight in 34 innings. His earned run average is a miniscule 1.03.

Luckily for Hopewell (7-2), McKay is scheduled to pitch today when the Vikings and Cougars meet at Park Field in a crucial section showdown. Blackhawk coach Bob Amalia is expected to start either Adam Rousseau, a junior right-hander, or Steve O'Hara, a junior lefty. Rousseau is 2-1, O'Hara 2-0.

"I'm very pleased to be where we are at this point," Amalia said. "But to tell you truth, when the WPIAL put all of us in this section, we had a lot of question marks. We have a few seniors. But we have so many juniors. So we're really a young team."

Colella has to be pleased so far from what he's gotten out of his young pitching staff. His top three throwers are all sophomore lefties - Stefan Mrkonja, Tim Hughes and Joe Kunzmann. Those three are 3-0, 4-1 and 3-2, respectively.

"It's going to come down to pitching," Colella said of the homestretch. "Everyone is capable of beating anyone. Beaver (2-7) beat Moon (6-4), Ambridge (2-6) beat New Castle (5-6). It goes right down the line. It comes down to who's the best pitcher on any given day."

With the rain wreaking havoc on baseball season so far, pitching depth will be so important the rest of the way.

Hopewell, for example, plays Blackhawk today and Ambridge on Saturday. It then has games next week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday against West Allegheny (4-6), Moon Area (6-4) and Central Valley (4-5).

After playing Hopewell today, Blackhawk has three games left. The Cougars played Moon on Monday, Beaver on Wednesday and Central Valley on Thursday.

"The thing about this league is that every team has at least one good pitcher and some have two," Amalia. "So if we go 2-2 the rest of the way, I'd be happy. That's how good this section is."

The "super section" is so good that the last four WPIAL champions came out of 1-AAA - West Allegheny (2007 and '08), Moon ('09) and Hopewell last year.