MORGANTOWN – The Morgantown High School baseball team will meet Wheeling Park in the Class AAAA Region I championship series this week, with the winner earning the right to represent Region I next weekend in the 2025 WVSSAC state baseball tournament in Charleston.
The two sides have met three times this season, with Wheeling Park taking two of the three contests. The Patriots won both regular-season matchups by one run before MHS took the OVAC 5A title game 4-2.
Wheeling Park will host Game 1 on Tuesday. Game 2 will move to Dale Miller Field at Mylan Park in Morgantown with a decisive Game 3 heading back to Wheeling, if needed.
“We’ve been working on fundamentals and making sure we are ready to do what we do best,” MHS head coach Pat Sherald said. “In this series, you’re going to see two talented baseball teams go head-to-head and battle. We had three close games against them already this season. They’re a well-coached club who pitch well and are strong defensively. But I like our team as well and I think we’re going into the week prepared and focused on the task at hand.”
In the three games the two sides played this season, the Patriots had success at the plate, earning more hits than MHS in all three contests. Particularly, the bottom half of the Wheeling Park lineup.
“They can hurt you all through their lineup,” Sherald said. “They had a few guys have some very strong games against us and we’ve been able to see some tendencies. But for us we just need to worry about controlling what we can control and putting the blinders on to achieve our goal.”
One thing that may benefit the Mohigans this week is their pitching rotation of Vinnie Aloi, Maddox Boggs, and Lucas Shinn. The trio has combined for a record of 15-3 this season and each have an ERA under three runs while throwing more than 35 innings. Aloi and Boggs have each thrown 30 strikeouts as well. Closer Judd Messerly has three saves in as many attempts this season.
“I think that benefits us in a best-of-three,” Sherald said. “I really like where those three are right now and hopefully they continue throwing strong and throwing strikes. We got some good innings for them against Bridgeport and Fairmont Senior this week in preparation and we will be ready to go come Tuesday evening.”
Morgantown and Wheeling Park begin the Region I championship series Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. in Wheeling. Game 2 will be at 5:30 p.m. in Morgantown on Wednesday.
