District 31 Legion regular-season concludes; playoffs next
The District 31 American Legion regular season concluded Sunday with two games.
Unity rallied in the sixth inning to defeat Derry, 9-7, and Somerset topped Trafford, 16-8.
The 14-team league was divided into two divisions — Eastern and Western.
The top two teams in each division will be seeded in the top four for the playoffs.
District 31 President Jason Bush, who serves as Latrobe’s coach, said the league’s coaches voted on how the seeding would go prior to the season.
The Eastern Division champion was Latrobe (16-0-3) with 73 points. Young Township (10-8-1) was second with 57 points.
Bushy Run (16-2-1), with its 2-1 victory against Murrysville (15-3-1) on Friday, won the Western Division with 71 points. Murrysville finished second with 69 points.
The next four playoff spots were the teams that accumulated the highest points.
Despite finishing with more points than Young Township, the Western Division’s Hempfield (13-5-1) was seeded fifth with 65 points, and Mt. Pleasant (11-8-0) was seeded sixth with 59 points.
Thanks to Somerset’s win, it earned the seventh seed with 56 points and Yough the eighth seeded with 53 points. Somerset ended up with a 9-10-0 record.
The rest of the teams finished in this order: Trafford (7-12-0) 52 points, Homer City (6-13-0) 50, Blairsville (6-13-0) 43, Derry (5-14-0) 40, Lower Burrell (4-15-0) 39 and Unity (4-15-0) 31.
Four points were awarded for a win, three points for a tie or forfeit win, two points for a loss and a minus-five points for a forfeit loss.
The league will hold a meeting 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Latrobe American Legion and finalize the playoff pairings.
“As long are we don’t have any problems, the parings seem set,” Bush said.
Latrobe will play Yough, Bushy Run faces Somerset, Murrysville tangles Mt. Pleasant and Young Township meets Hempfield East.
The playoffs are slated to begin Tuesday at Latrobe, Bushy Run, Murrysville and Young Township.
The top four finishers in the playoffs will advance to the regional tournament in Claysburg.
Paul Schofield is a TribLive reporter covering high school and college sports and local golf. He joined the Trib in 1995 after spending 15 years at the Daily Courier in Connellsville, where he served as sports editor for 14 years. He can be reached at pschofield@triblive.com.
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