LOCAL COLLEGE: Shevchik gets win No. 800 as Keystone baseball advances

Keystone (28-10), as the No. 1 seed, will host the United East double-elimination Final Four beginning Friday. It will face No. 4 Lancaster Bible College. The other matchup has No. 2 Penn State-Harrisburg against No. 3 Penn State-Abington. Play continues Saturday with the championship decided May 10. The champ receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III tournament.

The Giants are seeking their 21st straight conference title — four in the North East Athletic Conference (2005-08), 14 in the Colonial States Athletic Conference (2009-23) and two in the United East (2024-25).

In previous seasons, Keystone could throw its bats and gloves on the field and win. This year’s team is different. It is young, having graduated 22 players. Plus, the uncertainty of the college’s future meant a late start to recruiting.

“We were able to scrap it together over the summer and bring in a healthy recruiting class, but we were kind of late to the party,” Shevchik said. “If you told me last fall that we’d be sitting as the No. 1 seed going into the four-team championship with 28 wins, I probably would have said you were nuts. But credit to the guys.

“This year, we had to work harder. We’ve had to coach more and spend more time on the little detail things. Our catcher, first baseman, shortstop, third baseman, center fielder, right fielder are new, our pitching staff is new. So we had to use our fall to do more teaching. We had five freshmen on the field at one point this year, so we had to try to speed up the development process for all the guys. We’re playing a different style of baseball this year. We only have 20 home runs this year and probably have more sacrifice bunts and bunts for hits than we do extra-base hits. But that’s the type of team we have. The good news is the kids bought into it. We just have to throw enough strikes and we have a shot.”

Softball

At West Windsor Twp., New Jersey, Lackawanna College split two games at the NJCAA Region 19 Division II tournament hosted by Mercer County Community College.

After being blanked on two hits by Delaware Tech Community College in its first game, Lackawanna stayed alive in the double-elimination event by rallying to beat Salem Community College, 6-5.

Down, 5-0, entering the bottom of the fifth, Riley Knott had an RBI double to put the Lady Falcons on the scoreboard. In the sixth, Mekenzie Dineen had a run-scoring groundout and Mia Scalese scored on a passed ball to cut the deficit to 5-3. In the bottom of the seventh, Lackawanna loaded the bases on singles by Knott, Mackenzie Adolfson and Gracie Sokol. With two outs, Dineen cleared them with a game-winning triple.

Lackawanna (41-14) was scheduled to face Delaware Tech in the elimination-bracket final Saturday morning. A win would advance it to the final later Saturday against top-seeded Mercer Community College and it would have to win twice to capture the region title. However, making it to the final would guarantee a berth in the Atlantic A or B District series hosted by Region 10 next weekend.