CENTER TWP — After a loss in the second round of the Pony Bronco Super Regional in McCandless, the Center Township 12-year-old baseball team needed all hands on deck.

And arms.

So, all 10 players on the roster saw time on the mound as Center Township worked its way back through the losers bracket to advance to the Zone Tournament — the final step before the Pony World Series, which will be held in Los Alamitos, Calif., in August.

“We had some injury problems,” said CT coach Geoff Patterson. “We had a couple of guys with bad arms and one kid with a hurt knee. So, all 10 players pitched.”

Center Township, after a 22-19 loss to Chambersburg, had to win four games to get to the title game.

It did, downing Harrison County, W.Va., 7-3, Ohio 304 out of Youngstown, 26-6, McCandless, 5-4, and a rematch with Chambersburg, which it won 16-2.

The run ended with an 18-9 loss in the championship game to Canon-MacMillan, but both teams qualified for the Zone Tournament.

Center Township will play Greene County, N.Y., at 3 p.m. Friday in Cranberry Township.

The team, consisting of Colin Patterson, Carson Knight, Cooper Baxter, Noah Delano, Brady Gavula, Hayden Thompson, Jacob Pomykata, Ryan Wick, Collin Gahagan and Julius Collins, has advanced to the Zone Tournament for three straight seasons.

The team is made up solely of players from the Butler school district.

“We have a good hitting team,” Patterson said. “We don’t have a lot of speed, but we have a lot of mashers.”

That was evident by the scores.

Center Township scored 99 runs in seven games, including 20 or more runs twice.

In the loss to Chambersburg, CT clubbed four home runs.

But so did Chambersburg.

“It was a smaller field,” Patterson said. “The second time we played them, we played a great game and it was on a bigger field.”

Patterson’s son, Colin, pitched in that game and got the win.

Geoff Patterson said the going will be tough for his team in the Zone Tournament.

“The Greene County Outlaws are out of Albany, N.Y., and they are basically a travel team,” the coach said. “They finished second in their Cooperstown Tournament, which had 100 teams. They are a big organization.”

To Patterson, what this team has done has been very satisfying, particularly battling its way back through the losers bracket to get to the Zone Tournament.

“It’s also a great feeling to be able to do it with kids from the Butler school district,” Patterson said. “It feels good to compete and beat teams that have a lot more kids to draw from than what we have.”

The Center Township 10-year-old team also advanced to the Pony-Mustang Zone Tournament, making it a double-dip for CT.

That CT team won all four games of their tournament by a combined score of 50-7.

The Center Township 10-year-olds will begin their tournament Thursday against Western Branch, Va., in Chesterfield, Va.