WHEELING — As the legion state baseball tournament looms, six teams from around West Virginia are preparing for a run at the title.

However, players from Wheeling Post 1 (25-8) have been playing together all their lives for a moment like this.

“This is a special group of veteran guys,” Post 1 manager Jon-Michael Brunner said. “We’re just letting them have fun. We’re happy to have another opportunity to keep the guys together.

“It’s a great opportunity for this group to continue to build it’s relationship.”

After falling last year in the state tournament for the first time in three years, Wheeling is looking to get back on track and make a deep run into the weekend.

In order to do so, Brunner will need his pitching staff to continue to thrive as it has all season.

“We’re sticking with the guys we’ve relied on all year,” Brunner said. “Eli (Petho), Ryan Hummel, Isaac Hines, Erik Cover, we’ll throw Tubes (Trevor Thomas) out there, Dom Gorence and Dylan Gongola will be available.

“If the bats come alive, our pitchers have been phenomenal all year so we’ll expect them to be even more focused in the state tournament because it’s time to show what they’ve got.

“I think they’ll also be pitching for their buddies, who they’ve built relationships with over the years. I know players like Chas McCool, Eli Petho and Dom Gorence were all Mudcat guys. It’s a close-knit group and it’s their last time playing together so that holds a lot of weight.

“We always talk about the bigger picture in baseball and it’s about these memories.”

Post 1 will kickoff the tournament at 4 p.m. on Wednesday as it takes on host Romney. The two teams split the season series and Brunner expects to see Post 91’s best effort.

“Romney is playing good baseball and they have some older guys who want to play in college so it should be competitive,” Brunner said. “They put the ball in play hard and play small ball. We made some mental mistakes on defense last time and didn’t execute defensively on bunts.

“Their second pitcher did a good job of moving the ball around on us last time and kept us off balance. He was around the zone consistently so we need to let the ball get deep and attack with an aggressive approach.”

Petho kept Romney’s bats quiet in the first meeting as he fired a complete game in a 5-1 victory.

Along with Wheeling and Romney, Berkeley County, South Charleston, Elkins and Morgantown are also playing for a shot at the title with last year’s champion, Parkersburg, not making the trip.

“We haven’t been comparing last year’s team to this year’s team,” Brunner said. “Baseball is a hard game and you just have to be the better team that day.

“Last year we had 33 wins going into the tournament and played two bad games.

“This group has been rearing up for this week and they feel like they have a lot to prove but we’re just going to let them play baseball and we should be OK.”