Reporter/Times Herald/Montgomery Media Baseball Team of the Decade Tournament
It’s May, so area high school baseball fields should have been packed with teams battling for league and conference supremacy, pitchers twirling shutouts and batters looking to connect on some late-inning heroics.
The COVID-19 pandemic, however, never let action get started with baseball and the rest of the PIAA’s spring sports season cancelled.
So with no games to play, we here at The Reporter, Times Herald and Montgomery Media are out to keep competition going with our Team of the Decade Baseball Tournament.
The 16-team bracket to decide the top squad from seasons 2010 to 2019 will be unveiled in the Saturday, May 9 edition of The Reporter and Times Herald and online at papreplive.com. Polls to vote on each of the tournaments matchups will be posted on Twitter @ReporterSports.
Criteria in which we create the 16-team bracket includes several factors including overall records along with strength of schedule, league, district and state titles, talent on the field, memorable moments and more.
Suggestions for who should be in from fans, coaches, players — both past and present — or anyone can be sent to sports@thereporteronline.com.
There was plenty of success for local baseball teams in the previous 10 seasons — the decade bookended by PIAA Championships.
In 2010, Dock Mennonite claimed the Class A championship in walk-off fashion Altoona while in 2019 Souderton erased a three-run deficit in the 6A final in State College to earn the program’s first-ever PIAA title.
A total of seven area teams won state titles in the 2010s with La Salle and North Penn trading off the Class 4A crown over a four-year span, the Explorers taking titles in 2012 and 2014 while the Knights hoisted the trophy in 2013 and 2015.
Pope John Paul II gave the school its first-ever state championship with its win in the 2014 Class 3A title game.
A year earlier, Upper Moreland made a run all the way the 3A state final while a host of other HS programs have put together stellar campaigns during the decade.
Pennridge competed with North Penn at the top of the Continental standings with the Rams earning a District 1-6A championship in 2016. Methacton, meanwhile, proved itself as a top side in a tough Pioneer Athletic Conference and claimed a District 1-4A title in 2014.
Like fellow PCL side La Salle, Archbishop Wood has created moments of brilliance the last decade including a Catholic League title in 2015.
Of course, there are many more area teams that hold the qualifications to make the tournament. Make sure they’re known by sending in your nominations and after the bracket is unveiled Saturday, May 9 we’ll begin to decide who the best team was this past decade.
