BUTLER TWP — They are young and they are all Butler.

And they win with regularity.

The Junior Butler BlueSox, a 10-under AAU baseball team comprised of 12 Butler youths, have played together for three years now and recently completed a 28-8 season.

That record includes four tournament championships, a runner-up finish in a 28-team Memorial Day Tournament in Ohio and a No. 5 region ranking by Pa. Baseball Vault.

“The teams we go up against are AAU teams who pull in players from different states,” Junior BlueSox head coach Mike Slater said. “We just have a bunch of Butler kids who are really into playing baseball.”

Former Knoch High School baseball coach Curt Schnur, an assistant coach for the Junior BlueSox, agreed.

“It comes down to having coachable kids who listen,” Schnur said. “Make the basic plays, get hits when you need to and you will win games at this level.”

The Junior BlueSox are comprised of Ian Shay of Center Township, Lance Slater, Tyler Wiles, Conner McTighe and James Desmond of East Butler, Ryan Mclister, Madden Clement, Colin Casteel, Karter Weitzel, Mac Schnur, Ryan Porch and Jack Beneigh of Butler Township. The team is 107-13-1 over three years, winning 10 of the 11 tournaments it played in as a 9-under team, going 48-4-1. The squad was 31-1 as an 8-under unit two years ago.

“When that summer season was over, we saw that a bunch of kids wanted to keep playing, so we got them together,” Slater said. “We joined a fall league and it just took off from there.”

The team wound up joining an indoor league at a facility in New Castle and won that circuit. Since then, defeats have been few and far between.

While winning the Miracle tournament in Tarentum recently, the Junior BlueSox defeated Beaver Valley Red — the top-ranked 10-under team in the region — by scores of 10-6 and 5-4.

“What’s good about this is these kids are all Butler and they’ll continue to play together and learn the game together,” Schnur said.

Each player on the team plays multiple positions and no one on the squad sits on the bench for very long.

“We’re developing well-rounded players,” Slater said. “Everyone plays more than two innings a game and the older these kids get, you don’t know what position on the field they’ll grow into.

“A shortstop now may be a first baseman later. These are competitive kids who want to experience the feel of different positions. Three or four of our guys have played catcher and just about all of them pitch.”

Tim Mclister and Matt Clement are other assistant coaches on the team.

“When we first formed the team, kids from East Butler, Butler Township, CT ... We wondered if they were going to mix,” Mclister admitted. “But the team chemistry has been incredible.

“We didn’t do anything. It just happened. These kids represent their community associations really well. They go on vacations together, to Pirate games together ... they just want to play more and more.”