BCCC baseball rolls to first league title in 30 years

By JOHN ENRIETTO Eagle Sports Editor

October 15, 2004 Last Updated: January 06, 2005 12:14 PM College

BUTLER TWP - Sporting a 6-7 record and dropping four consecutive home games, Butler County Community College didn't look like a championship baseball team.

"We dropped seven of 10 games and were making errors all over the field," BC3 coach Steve Boyd said. "I lost my patience and exploded on them.

"I said some rather unpleasant things to these guys."

After Boyd's tongue lashing, the Pioneers held a team meeting behind the dugout.

Since that meeting, BC3 has won 13 of 14 games, outscoring the opposition 102-43 during that stretch, and captured its first Western Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference baseball title in 30 years.

BC3 (19-8) will travel to Bethlehem this weekend to face North Hampton (17-7) in a best-of-three series for the state championship. Game 1 is Saturday.

"Coach Boyd was trying to motivate us with the psychological stuff and somebody was taking it as a negative," pitcher Vaughn Norbert said. "We had to have a players meeting to straighten things out."

"I've had teams here with four or five outstanding players, but I never had a team play together like this one has," said Boyd, who is 145-117 in five years at BC3.

The Pioneers have a .327 team batting average and a 3.62 team earned run average. But the team has hit just five home runs and has stolen only 20 bases in 27 games.

"We win by moving runners around and getting clutch hits in clutch situations," said second baseman and Seneca Valley graduate Greg Slack.

The first five batters in the lineup are hitting above .380. They include center fielder Steve Murray (.392), Slack (.398), first baseman Glen Sharrar (.463) - all from Seneca Valley - shortstop and Karns City graduate Nate McCollough (.411), and Butler graduate and designated hitter Mike Dorondo (.387).

Sharrar leads the team in batting average, in hits with 38 and in doubles with nine.

Sharrar and Norbert wound up at BC3 after tearing their rotator cuffs in high school.

"I had to miss a year after doing that," Sharrar said. "I was primarily a pitcher at Seneca Valley who never played another position. Now I'm strictly a first baseman who never pitches."

Union graduate Norbert (3-1) is in the Pioneers' regular pitching rotation with Dan Hill, Slack (3-2) and Karns City graduate Scott Jordan (4-0). Butler graduate Shane Seybert (2-2) has worked a lot of innings as well.

"I was being recruited by Pitt-Bradford and Cleveland State, and a few other small schools before I hurt my arm," Norbert said. "I'm hoping to pitch for a four-year school eventually."

McCollough (2-0) has pitched only 19

innings and is happy about it.

"I prefer to play my regular position," he said. "It's been great, all this pitching we had."

McCollough was recruited by Thiel and Seton Hill out of high school, but he opted for BC3 after his older brother, Jason, was a catcher there.

Jason McCollough eventually played at Thiel, but his career ended there with an arm injury.

Thiel and Clarion had interest in Jordan, but he opted for BC3 because it was closer to home.

"I wanted to commute to school. This was the obvious choice for me," Jordan said. "I played ball with a lot of these guys over the summer and it was a good fit."

It's turned out to be a good team, too.