Survive and advance.

Usually a mantra for teams involved in any sort of single-elimination tournament format, the members of WPIAL Section 3-AAAA extend that rationale to the regular season.

As the reigning co-champion of what has proven to be the WPIAL's most successful Class AAAA baseball section since the PIAA went to four classifications in 2005, Bethel Park understood this as well as anyone going into this season.

The Black Hawks were in line to clinch a playoff berth with a victory yesterday against last-place Baldwin. That it came down to the final game of the regular season for the team that went to the WPIAL championship game a year ago was no surprise to that team's coach, Jim Rider.

"We've always said that if we can get into the playoffs, we might be able to do something," Rider said. "It's just, 'Let's get into the playoffs.' In our section at the beginning of the year we didn't think we'd know who would get to play in the playoffs until the last game of the season. And that's the way it's looking."

With only six teams, Section 3-AAAA matches Section 2-A as the smallest groupings in the WPIAL. But what the section lacks in quantity, it makes up for with quality. Since the advent of Class AAAA baseball, four of the six WPIAL finalists have come from this section.

Last season, Peters Township entered the section and met Bethel Park for the championship (the Indians won, 12-0). The year before, Mt. Lebanon was a WPIAL finalist. In the first season of Class AAAA play, Upper St. Clair played in the WPIAL title game.

"It's brutal," Rider said. "And you don't get a break. You play three section games a week. It's brutal."

This season appears to be no different. The section is 18-8 in intersectional contests (with three of those defeats coming from winless Baldwin).

Peters Township was the consensus top team in the WPIAL entering the season and the Indians won all five of their non-section games yet they were not assured of even making the playoffs heading into their final game last night. First-place Canon-McMillan also was 5-0 playing outside the section.

"We're all quality teams," Rider said. "There's no break."

Rider's team had fallen from 9-4 to 10-8, 8-6 in the section heading into yesterday's game after a 6-5 loss to Canon-McMillan Monday. But he did say he remained confident that any team that emerges from the Section 3 gauntlet would be a force to be reckoned with in the WPIAL Class AAAA playoffs.

The Bethel Park pitching staff is anchored by its three senior starters, Dave Treushel, Nate Clark and Casey DelPercio. Clark, a left-hander, is in his first season pitching at the varsity level and had been leading the team in strikeouts through the midway point of the season.

Right-hander DelPercio is in his second season as a starter and Treushel, another right-hander, pitched previously but has become a starter this season.

"They are not power pitchers; they're not going to overwhelm hitters," Rider said. "We have a typical high school pitching staff that has to keep the ball low, hit spots and change speeds."

Offensively, the primary producers have been junior shortstop Jimmy Meyer, junior infielder Marc Foster and senior catcher Mike Leviseur.

Meyer, a leadoff batter, had been leading the team in home runs and runs. Foster bats second, junior second baseman Mike Ganley third and Leviseur cleanup.

"Lately, no one is banging the ball all over," Rider said. "Our hitting is a little off, pitching is a little off and our defense is a little off. The result is that we're a little off."

As much as Rider sounded frustrated after the loss to Canon-McMillan, he also said he was confident that the Black Hawks could return to the form they showed earlier this season.

"I really do," said Rider, coach of the Black Hawks for more than a decade. "I believe they can get it back."