In the first week of section play, the Moon baseball team showed the pros and cons of being a young team.

The Tigers knocked off WPIAL Class AAA's top-ranked team, West Allegheny, 5-4 on April 2, then backed up that win with an 11-1 victory at Keystone Oaks last Friday.

But just when things seemed to be rolling along smoothly for Moon, the team hit its first bump in the road, a 14-6 home loss to Chartiers Valley on Monday.

"We had a day where we didn't make any plays in the field," Moon coach Dom Santeufemio said. "These are the growing pains I've been talking about, but I expect we'll bounce back."

The loss was Moon's first of the season, making them 5-1 overall and 2-1 in Section 3-AAA, good for second place in the early stages.

"I think we'll be good in the section," senior catcher Ryan Suess said. "I don't know if we'll win the section championship, but we should get second or third and get back into the playoffs."

Moon got the win over West Allegheny with a three-run inning in the bottom of the seventh, as the Tigers finally got to Indians' ace Zak Sinclair. Zach Schmidt and Brett Hoffman both singled in the seventh for Moon before West A pulled their starter.

Reliever Derek Zeroski couldn't find the plate, throwing two intentional walks, a wild pitch and a game-winning RBI walk to Nico Marocco, who also picked up the win, throwing 1 2/3 innings of relief for Moon.

"We got a few breaks that game, and they made some errors running and pitching," Suess said.

In the Chartiers Valley game, the breaks all went the way of the Colts, as Moon saw a 3-0 lead evaporate in a nine-run second for CV. Brad Schnelle struggled in the loss, before being relieved by Zach Mangan after just 1 2/3 innings.

On days like that, Santeufemio is happy to have seniors like Suess behind the plate and Mangan to turn to in the bullpen, to help the young players make it through the rough patches.

"I just try to calm the guys down, tell them they'll get through it and we'll be fine," Suess said.