For all the recent softball success at Mt. Pleasant, Paul Reho insisted something was missing when he took over as varsity coach two years ago.
He wanted to tighten the reins.
“Just looking for more attention to detail, more discipline,” Reho said after No. 3 Mt. Pleasant needed eight innings in the WPIAL Class 3A semifinals to outlast No. 7 Keystone Oaks, 3-2, at Norwin on Chloe Borelli’s walk-off RBI double.
Mt. Pleasant, which won Class 3A championships in 2016 and ‘21 and was Class 4A runner-up in 2019, claimed its fourth trip in 11 years to a WPIAL championship game, where the Vikings will face No. 1 South Park at 2:15 p.m. Thursday at PennWest California’s Lilley Field.
For Reho, winning a Section 1-3A championship in each of his first two seasons is satisfying, but perhaps that bit of tightening this year has helped propel the Vikings all the way back to a WPIAL title game.
“You come in as a head coach and you want the program to be your program,” Reho said. “Sometimes, that requires changing the culture. But there’s got to be a transition period there. I did change some things the first year, but it got a little tighter this season. I mean, when you ride the bus to a game and leave the windows down, you don’t want to do that. You don’t want to leave it for the coaches to put them up.”
And so forth — there are tons of examples, implied Reho, who succeeded Chris Brunson, now the coach at Division III Waynesburg.
Brunson enjoyed immense success as Mt. Pleasant’s coach during a six-year span that produced a 72-33 record with WPIAL and PIAA 3A championships in 2021 after the covid pandemic wiped out the 2020 season.
Reho served as his top assistant for a time before being elevated.
“It’s huge to get back to the WPIAL final,” he said. “It’s important to keep it going and build on what Chris and his teams were doing. I’m just so proud of the girls and the fight. We are section champs and we’re trying to become WPIAL champs, obviously two of our goals. Then maybe state champs, but I think that’s everyone’s goal. We have a chance to accomplish it.”
Together, said Reho, who said he’s been striving to create a better togetherness among his players.
“I’ve been coaching softball since my daughter was 4,” he said, referring to Mt. Pleasant junior outfielder Talia Reho.
He’s coached her teams in travel ball and at the junior high and junior varsity levels prior to taking control of the varsity team.
“I’ve come up through the ranks with the older kids on this team now. The freshmen were relatively new to me because I didn’t see them play a lot, but I knew they were a capable group,” he said.
Included was Borelli, who also doubled in the semifinals game to finish with two of Mt. Pleasant’s four hits against Keystone Oaks hard-luck loser Kennadi Smith, a Division III Chatham commit, who retired 17 consecutive Vikings batters before senior shortstop Carly Surma led off the eight with a double that ignited the winning rally.
When he took over as coach before the start of the 2025 season, Reho said the team appeared to be divided into cliques.
“There was separation between upper and lower classmen,” he said. “A younger girl wouldn’t dare say something to a senior. I didn’t want it that way. We are one team, ninth grade through 12th grade.
“For the most part, it’s been pretty well received.”
He has his seniors — all two of them — to thank a bunch for that success. But it takes an entire team, Reho said.
Together, of course.
“I have only two seniors (Surma and third baseman Gracie Etling), but you expect a lot of the leadership to come from them,” Reho said. “They knew what kind of players the younger players were and they knew if they embraced that, we could come together and do something special.”