A WPIAL baseball title and a Western Pennsylvania Elite League summer title would normally be enough for house bragging rights.

Not in the Bondi household.

Recent Moon graduate Phil Bondi helped lead the Tigers to a WPIAL Class AAA title May 29. Then, a little more than two months later, Bondi and his summer league team, the Diamond Dawgs, captured the Western Pennsylvania Elite Baseball League title this past Saturday.

Not to be outdone, 300 miles away in Scranton, Pa., Bondi's 12-year old brother, Kyle, was belting two home runs, helping lead the Moon Little League team to a state title and a trip to the Mid-Atlantic Regional in Bristol, Conn. where, beginning tomorrow, six teams will battle it out to send a representative to the Little League World Series in Williamsport.

"It is pretty fun for me, I got both sons in the middle of everything," said father Phil Bondi, who has been logging plenty of miles in his SUV around the state following his sons.

"Not too many dads can say they got a WPIAL title and a Little League state title in the same year. That is pretty cool. It is very competitive between Phil and Kyle. It is a healthy competition."

The team was to arrive in Bristol this afternoon with Moon's first game scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday against the New Jersey champions.

When the younger Phil Bondi was at the Little League level, he and his teammates would always get tripped up by a tough Ingomar National team based out of McCandless.

As many state champions as Allegheny County has produced on the high school level in various sports, Little League state titles have been extremely elusive. The last team from District 4 to win the state title and reach the region tournament was the Ingomar National team in 1992. District 4 covers all of Allegheny County.

The Moon Little League team faces pool play with five other teams, the Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and New York state champions along with the District of Columbia champ.

After pool play the top four teams will advance to a single-elimination two round playoff with the championship game televised by ESPN2 and with the winner advancing to the Little League World Series in Williamsport.

"It is a dream come true for them," said the younger Phil Bondi, who is headed to Radford University to play baseball.

"I always hear about it from Kyle when he gets home. I hit one home run, he tells me he hit two. I'm looking forward to going up to Connecticut to watch his team. It is a really good group of kids; they definitely outdid my group. The talent they have is amazing.

"We have played catch our whole lives in the backyard and he has a good arm and he hits really well. When he does things, it doesn't look pretty but it works."

Kyle has played mostly left field in his Little League career although his older brother is a shortstop.

"I definitely brought up my two home runs to him when I got home," Kyle said. "Phil always taught me to always play my best and always hustle."

The success Phil and Kyle have enjoyed on the baseball diamond should not come as a total surprise. Their father was a standout at Moon Area High School in the mid-1980s and was named to the Post-Gazette All-Area team in 1984 and in college was named a Junior College All-American at the Community College of Beaver County.

He later transferred to the University of Arizona and played baseball there for a year.

Moon Little League manager Tim Volek coached this group of players last year when they were 11 year olds when they reached the state western finals, losing a close game in the final innings.

"Matt Capo hit a ball that looked like it was going over the fence but a kid made a leaping catch and it was a heartbreaking loss," Volek said.

"The kids cried their eyes out after that game. When we lost there, we came back and they watched the [Little League] World Series on TV and they said we are going to be there next year.

"They worked hard all winter long and their dream is coming true. They have been on a mission since last year."

Although there is room for error in the double-elimination tournaments and pool play formats used in some of the qualifiers Moon hasn't needed it. The team is 14-0 since entering the district tournament.

Power hitting has been the strength of the Moon Little League team. In six state playoff games Moon connected for 21 home runs.

The top power hitters have been pitcher/shortstop Josh Bogats, pitcher/third basemen Marco DeBlassio and catcher Mason Prickett. In the clinching game of the state finals Prickett hit a two-out grand slam.

Bogats, DeBlassio and Capo have been the top three pitchers for Moon. DeBlassio and Bogats picked up the wins in the state championship series each pitching 52/3 innings.

After its region-opening game on Saturday, Moon will face Northwest Washington, the District of Columbia champion at 11 a.m. Sunday, then M-O-T out of Delaware at 2 p.m. on Tuesday and Conococheague from Maryland at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

Should Moon advance to the semifinals, it will play next Thursday and Friday with the Championship game live on ESPN2 on Aug. 17.