Alan Denman was not expecting to get off to a fast start with the Pittsburgh Pandas.

After all, he was a bit rusty, having taken a redshirt freshman season with the Gardner-Webb University baseball team this spring.

Also, he had never played in a wooden-bat league before.

But after his first nine games in the 12-team Tri-State Summer Collegiate League, Denman, 19, was leading the Pandas in batting average at .476 (10 for 21).

A 6-foot-3, 195-pound third baseman, he had helped the Pandas, the defending National Amateur Baseball Federation College Division (ages 22 and under) champions, get off to a 9-0 start.

So, what has been the secret to his success with the wooden bat?

"The advice the Pandas coach [John Bellaver] gave me was that I needed to find the barrel and get good pitches to hit," said Denman, a Blackhawk High School graduate who resides in Chippewa.

Denman obviously follows advice well.

His biggest hit for the Pandas, who play their home games at La Roche College in McCandless, came on June 14 in a 3-2 win against visiting Youngstown. Trailing 2-1 with two runners on and two out in the bottom of the ninth, Denman delivered a clutch double up the left-center alley that drove in the tying and winning runs.

Besides doing a good job of adjusting to wooden bats, Bellaver said the other area in which Denman has shined is his ability to hit off-speed pitches. The game-winning double and another long double he hit this past week came on hanging curveballs.

"He did exactly what he's supposed to do with them," said Bellaver. "He hit them hard and he hit them far.

"In order to hit the curveball, you have to keep your hands back. He does an excellent job of that."

Denman was an excellent baseball player at Blackhawk and also advanced to the East-West Pennsylvania American Legion All-Star Game. In the fall, he served as the quarterback on Blackhawk's football team.

Denman said when he went to Gardner-Webb in Boiling Springs, N.C., on a partial baseball scholarship, he was well aware of the possibility of receiving a redshirt. Still, it was hard to sit out a whole season.

So far, his start with the Pandas has been nothing but good times. Besides the early success, Denman is playing with two former Blackhawk teammates who happen to be two of his best friends -- pitcher Mathias Bable and outfielder Tyler Marburger. The trio makes the 40-minute commute to Pandas' home games from Beaver County together.

The Pandas' 9-0 start improved the team to 34-1 in its last 35 games. Although just seven of the 23 members of this year's team played on last year's national-championship team, the Pandas haven't missed a beat because of sensational pitching. Through nine games -- the Pandas play a 32-game regular season -- the pitching staff had a combined ERA of 0.98.

The hits just haven't been coming for Pandas' opponents. But for Denman they've been coming at a steady pace.

"The ball just explodes off his bat," said Frank Gilbert, in his seventh season as the Pandas' general manager. "There's a tremendous upside to him."

Showing hitting prowess with a wooden bat is no doubt a big part of that upside.