For the third consecutive year, a group of area high school softball players is heading west in a quest for a national championship.

The Pittsburgh Pirates 18-and-under All-Star fast-pitch softball team will compete in the Major League Baseball-sponsored Softball RBI World Series in Compton, Calif., in August.

The team, comprising players from the Woodland Hills, Carlynton and McKeesport high school teams, qualified for the national tournament earlier this month by winning the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship, which was held in Penn Hills.

"We're very excited to be going again," Pirates coach Darren Fisher said. "Everyone played really well [at the regionals]. It should be quite a positive experience for the girls out there again."

The tournament is a production of Major League Baseball's Reviving Baseball in Inner-cities (RBI) program, which is staged in conjunction with the Boys & Girls Club. To be eligible, there must be a Boys & Girls Club in your area. The Carnegie, East Braddock, McKeesport and Shadyside branches are represented on the team.

A baseball team representing the area and sponsored by the Pirates also competed in the regional baseball tournament, but it lost in the semifinals. The boys' baseball regional finals were held at PNC Park.

Winning the softball Mid-Atlantic regional for the third consecutive season was due, in large part, to the efforts of Carlynton's Dani Lautenschlager. She went 3-1 as the pitcher for the team in the round-robin regional tournament, including a 1-0 shutout of Cleveland in the championship game.

A double by Woodland Hills first baseman Courtney Thompkins drove in McKeesport's Lynsay Sczmarek for that game's winning run. The Pirates had lost to Cleveland to open the tournament before rebounding to reach the final and avenge that defeat.

"It was specifically nice to be able to come back and beat them," Fisher said.

Other members of the roster include Woodland Hills' Ranelle Gore and Brittany Swartzwelder (first base/designated hitter), the Wolverines' Brianna Moore (center field), Jamison Chatera (catcher) and Keyana McDonald and Keiera Murphy (right field).

Carlynton is represented on the team by Lautenschlager, second baseman Tonya Temoff, left fielder Stephanie Southland, right fielder Kim Head and third baseman Stephanie Maloney.

Shortstop Sczmarek is joined by infielder Stephanie Susky as McKeesport players on the Pirates roster.

The team was selected after the end of the high school season by Fisher, a member of the Carlynton coaching staff. The team practiced together for more than a month before the regionals.

Major League Baseball finances the trip to Southern California, provides security and a week of activities.

Last season, the Pirates lost in the semifinals to a team from Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico. In addition to teams representing the 30 Major League Baseball clubs, there also are RBI softball and baseball teams representing areas such as Puerto Rico and Hawaii.

"It's great for kids to get to meet other kids from all across the country that share a similar interest like softball," Fisher said. "We'll have a good time out there."

Before the MLB Urban Baseball Academy was built and became the permanent home of the national championship, Pittsburgh hosted the event in 2005.

"We have girls who met a lot of the players on other teams and still are friends today, kept in touch through e-mails in college," said Charles Saunders, director of the Boys & Girls Clubs and RBI program in the area. "The development of social interaction skills is also a big part of the benefit of it."

The RBI program in Pittsburgh is tied to the Roberto Clemente Foundation as well as the Boys & Girls Club.

The Pirates and RBI helped build a state-of-the-art baseball facility in Shadyside, which opened last year.

"We use baseball as a conduit to help develop a rapport with kids," Saunders said. "We'll have Pirates coaches and college coaches in to help teach fundamentals and talk about the game. We teach sportsmanship -- we shake hands before and after every game.

"Once you build that rapport, the relationships last a lifetime. You open up that dialogue for kids so they can make better decisions as they navigate the gauntlet high school life in some of the areas they live in."