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By Travis L. Pickens, April 7, 2008

Last updated: Monday, April 7, 2008 9:07 AM EDT

This week will be a tough one for the Cedar Cliff baseball team.

But it isn’t as much of a killer as it could have been.

The Colts’ schedule shrunk from five games in seven days to four after the non-conference game at Altoona set for Saturday was pushed back to April 18.

In comparison, Cedar Cliff had only one game last week.

“Obviously we’d like to have a little more balance but that’s how the schedule worked out,” Cedar Cliff coach Will Hoover said.

The Colts (4-1) face Reading today before a pair of Mid-Penn Commonwealth battles — at Carlisle on Tuesday and at home against Central Dauphin East on Thursday. The week ends Friday evening at Commerce Bank Park against Mechanicsburg at 6:30 p.m.

“It’ll be a tough test for us this week,” Hoover said. “We measure the team on adversity, not success. We have veteran pitchers who are ready to go.”

The tricky part is what to do in the non-Commonwealth games.

With last year’s District 3 playoff rule that grants postseason eligibility to any team at .500 or better, the importance of games against teams like Reading and Mechanicsburg grows.

“In years gone by these games had no (effect) on (the playoffs) so you could go out and throw a pitcher without any experience,” Hoover said. “If you lose that game it doesn’t hurt your conference ranking to get into the postseason. The .500 rule bases a lot of importance on non-conference games.

“If your No. 1 pitcher is supposed to throw, he might not be held for the conference games.”

From afar, three of Cedar Cliff’s opponents this week don’t look very daunting: Reading, Carlisle and Mechanicsburg have a combined 4-13 record.

But that doesn’t mean Hoover will overlook any of them, especially the Mid-Penn foes. Carlisle captured it’s first win Saturday and Mechanicsburg has lost four games by a total of eight runs.

“There’s always that worry,” Hoover said of his players losing focus against non-division teams. “Even when we don’t have games, practice can get a little monotonous. We have to be prepared to play, especially with the importance of the non-conference games and needing 10 wins for the playoffs.”

TOUGH OPENING ACT

At first glance, the 0-5 start Carlisle endured looked ugly.

Take a look deeper and the appearance starts to change.

The Thundering Herd, which beat Mechanicsburg on Saturday for its first win, opened with what turned out to be a very strong schedule.

Add up the records of Elizabethtown, Gettysburg, Shippensburg, Central Dauphin and Red Land — Carlisle’s first five opponents — and you get a cumulative record of 20-3, an .869 winning percentage.

“We just had a talk about that the other day,” Carlisle coach Brett Livingston said. “When you’re playing that caliber of teams early in the season, it’s going to make you better later in the season. I believe our guys are starting to get that and understand that we can play with all those teams, it’s just one (bad) inning we’ve had a problem with.”

The Herd meets Mid-Penn Commonwealth foes Cedar Cliff (4-1) at George Bowen Field on Tuesday and travels to Cumberland Valley (3-1) on Thursday.

GOOD START

Last year Big Spring didn’t win its second game until May 4 when it beat East Pennsboro, a team that didn’t win its first game until May 7.

It took the Bulldogs 15 games to notch their second win while the Panthers finally won when they took the field for the 16th time.

This year, Big Spring equalled last season’s win total in its second game and East Penn found the win column in its first game.

The two teams, hoping for a resurgence, lock horns April 18 in Newville.

HITTING FOR POWER

Brian Belinskas has been a force for Cumberland Valley

Since Belinskas cracked the lineup against Wilson West Lawn on March 29, he’s hit .600 (6-for-10) with three doubles and a triple. That’s as many extra-base hits as the rest of the Eagles have — total.

Before his two singles against Cedar Cliff, the junior had only extra-base hits.

TIMES SET

On Friday, June 13 the state baseball finals will be held at Blair County Ballpark in Altoona for the fourth straight year. The games move back to a one-day format after being played over two days the last two years.

Class AA is up first at 10:30 a.m. followed by AAAA at 1 p.m. and A at 4:30. Class AAA rounds out the action at 7 p.m., PIAA associate executive director Dr. Robert Lombardi confirmed this week.