When the college baseball season began, first-year La Roche coach Chase Rowe knew he had a talented team, one he thought would challenge for the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference title.

When the Redhawks got off to a slow 9-10 start, Rowe maintained a confident front. But he admits he was getting nervous.

"I was starting to have doubts," he said. "I still thought we were talented. We just had to find the right combination.

"We went into the season thinking we were going to be able to put together big innings with lot of power. As things progressed, we found we had to change that thinking and rely more on speed and moving runners along."

It didn't help that Ryan DeMary, a right-handed junior starter from Derry whom Rowe expected would be the ace of the staff, was lost for the season with an arm injury.

Instead of pulling the infield tarp over themselves, the Redhawks battled back. They went on a nine-game winning streak, finished with a 23-15 overall record and won the AMCC regular-season title with a 13-5 mark.

In winning the regular-season title, La Roche earned the right to host the AMCC final four this weekend at the college's John Arnold Sr. Memorial Field.

The double-elimination tournament starts at 9 a.m. tomorrow with Frostburg State meeting Medaille. La Roche is scheduled to play Pitt-Bradford at noon. The two losers will play at 3 p.m. The tournament continues Saturday.

The turning point in the season for La Roche came April 7 with a doubleheader victory against Hilbert College. In the second game, a 10-0 win, left-hander Phil Avolio, a sophomore from Canon-McMillan High School, tossed a no-hitter.

"It was one of those days when it was about 20 degrees and snowing. It was miserable," said Rowe, a Knoch High School graduate. "That seemed to get us going."

The two wins started the nine-game streak. La Roche went on to win 11 of 12. Along the way, Rowe made a couple lineup changes.

He took backup infielder Keith Borman, a freshman from Penn Hills, put him in right field and made him the leadoff hitter. He is hitting .295 with seven stolen bases and 26 runs.

Drew Bosco, a sophomore from Blackhawk High, became the starting third baseman and is hitting .303 with 16 RBIs.

"We've gone to more of a team concept on offense and it has paid off," Rowe said. "We started getting contributions from a lot of people and that made a difference."

Going into the tournament, seven of the Redhawks' nine starters are hitting .300 or better. Leading the way is catcher Nick Wendell, a senior from Bedford, who is hitting .338 with 5 homers and 32 RBIs. Designated hitter Dustin Kuhn, a senior from Dover, Pa., is right behind at .337 with 17 RBIs.

The rest of the starting lineup includes second baseman Nate McCollough (.331) from Karns City, center fielder Eric McCombie (.321) from Homer City, left fielder Brett Spagnole (.314) from Seneca Valley and shortstop Lucas McCoy (.301, 15 steals) from Penn Cambria. Darin Sharek from Ellwood City and Justin Alessio from Shaler have split time at first with Alessio hitting .286. Sharek's average is just .224, but he has 20 RBIs.

Rowe said he doesn't have a true No. 1 starter. Instead, Avolio, who is 4-3 with a 3.86 ERA, and Nate Fillip, a right-hander from Brashear High School who is 3-1 with a 3.69 ERA, have shared the role.

McCollough has developed into the team's closer and has a 3-1 record with six saves and a 1.64 ERA in 14 games. Varinder Gill, a senior from Ontario, and Kurt Krejocic, a junior from Homer City, have four and three victories, respectively.

La Roche finished its schedule on time and has been off for more than a week while other AMCC teams battled to see who would make the final four. Rowe said the break was needed.

"Our pitchers were pretty beat up from playing a lot of games in a short amount of time," he said. "We've been playing some intra-squad games to keep sharp, so I think the rest will help us."

The tournament winner advances to the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional May 16-20 at a site to be determined.