For years, baseball was commonly referred to as the “thinking man’s game”.

With so much strategy behind every pitch, every bat, those in charge of a ball club must surely make their fair share of decisions throughout a contest of nines―or in the case of high school, sevens. – sleeves.

In 2020, the WPIAL decided to take the intellectual aspect of the game and kick it up a few notches, opting to hold high school baseball section contests on two consecutive days between the same two teams. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, high school principals have had an entire year to sit down and brainstorm a plan. Last spring was, for many, a chance to test out a few different ideas and find out what works.

“The first year was different simply because we were so used to our two games against section opponents being a month apart,” Beaver manager Noah Medich told The Times earlier this week. “But now I’ve learned to like it. It’s cool. It’s intense. It brings another level of intensity. It’s very similar to baseball.

As expected, each club has its own way of dealing with this “fun” but new challenge.

For some teams, it’s as simple as the best pitcher starting the first game and the second man in the rotation the next day. Blackhawk’s Lou Wolber feels that this simple but stern strategy lets his group know that the first and only priority is the next game on the schedule.

“You can’t live for tomorrow,” Wolber told The Times earlier this week, “especially with the way things are now. You have to hope for a sweep and if you don’t you have to hope for at least one. separation. You don’t want to be swept away. I can’t think of saving a guy for tomorrow because every section win is so important.

Blackhawk’s section enemy Beaver, on the other hand, approaches things a bit differently.

Medich believes that to give his team their best chance of winning, the player on the mound must be comfortable. Rather than arranging his rotation based on matchups or ace first, the Bobcats have a home starter (Garrett Pander) and a road starter (Jack Ray) for section battles. Their order may change, but not their routines.

Neither Wolber nor Medich said they considered the opposition in their decision-making. However, New Brighton skipper Mike Kirschner says there will be times when he does.

“Depending on where you are in the standings, if you’re playing a team with a really good pitcher that you might struggle to score runs on, you might just prefer to have your ace pitch the next day against their second-best player,” Kirschner told The Times.

Kirschner thinks the area of ​​throwing that’s really being tested due to back-to-back sectional contests is bullpen strategy. As always, teams with throwing depth will have an advantage. But, unlike college and pro ball, height limits could prevent teams from using the same reliever twice in a series.

According to WPIAL rules, a pitcher can only appear in consecutive games if they threw less than 25 pitches in the first contest. In total, 25-50 locations require a day or rest, 51-75 locations require two days, and 75-100 require three days.

For clubs with a deep bullpen this is not a problem. For those with thin pitching, that means a little extra work.

“This year we have to look at the team, see what their strengths are and hopefully we can match,” Wolber said. “Our goal is to throw someone who doesn’t play to their strengths.”

For teams with starters who typically go long in ball games, there’s always the tempting idea of ​​using the best next arm, if necessary for just three outs. As his club clung to a 3-2 lead in Tuesday’s seventh inning against Blackhawk, Medich said there were plans to bring in Ray, who was due to start on Wednesday, to come in and close the door.

“There are times when if we really feel like we need to call on Jack to help us win, especially against a good team, we would,” Medich said. “You have to take what you can get.”

The idea of ​​winning today and worrying about tomorrow when it comes seems to be the common theme throughout Beaver Valley. A bad two-day streak now could be something that alters a season. The games mean a little more, but going by what the managers are saying, there’s definitely a little more pressure on the line.

For players and coaches, it can certainly be stressful. For everyone else, it might be, as Medich put it, pretty “cool.”

Contact Noah Hiles at [email protected] Follow him on twitter @_NoahHiles.