The Aberdeen Smittys will be looking to turn the tables on Yankton in their best-of-three Class A American Legion baseball regional series starting tonight in Yankton.

The Smittys went 12-22 in the regular season, while Yankton went 21-11. Yankton swept both games against Aberdeen during the regular season, 9-0, and 9-4 at Fossum Field in Aberdeen.

“They’re going to pitch the ball pretty well. They have a couple good arms in the top half of their rotation,” said Smittys coach Josh Steinwandt. “We’re just going to have to be able to hit velocity and we’re going to have to be able to hit off-speed well. The boys have been coming to practice, and we’ve been dialing up the pitching machine at practice, getting ready for some velocity like we’re going to see against Yankton. It’s going to be a pretty good team, so we’re going to need to be able to play a full seven-inning ball game.”

Even though the Smittys are coming into the series as the underdogs, Steinwandt has a lot of belief in his team.

“I just told them we can compete with anyone really when we put all three facets of the game together,” Steinwandt said. “We can compete with anyone in the state and we’ve proven that. I told them when we’re on our A game that we can beat anyone in the state, and they have to buy in for that and if they do, we’ll be successful.”

The Smittys head into the postseason with a three-game winning streak, outscoring opponents 36-13 in those three games. Steinwandt thinks his team is getting hot at the perfect time.

“The boys are finally feeling what it takes to win baseball games,” Steinwandt said. “That’s what we’ve been missing the whole year is just finding different ways to win baseball games, and getting that momentum and confidence going into the playoffs is very crucial. I think we’re playing our best baseball right now.”

Steinwandt is planning to rely on what he thinks the strength of his team is.

“I think our biggest strength has been pitching. Pitching has been a good strength for us this year,” Steinwandt said. “We’ve had low numbers and had to rely on a lot of guys this year, and I think no matter who we put on the mound, they’ve been able to throw strikes and they’ve been doing it. They’ve just been able to do their job, and I think that will continue into regions. And if we throw strikes, then we can field the ball and not give another team extra outs. And I think that will be a good recipe for success.”

While pitching may be the team’s strength, another key to the postseason might come on the offensive side.

“I think one big key is we have to hit the ball,” Steinwandt said. “I think we’ve been kind of struggling with that. Not recently, but throughout the whole year we’ve just been so inconsistent with hitting. One game we’re hitting the ball really well, and the next we’re not. So, if we can put together two or three good games of hitting, just putting good bat on ball and not striking out a lot, that’ll vote into a lot of success.”

The Smittys will open the series at 7 tonight and will finish out the series Thursday, with game two scheduled for noon and game three scheduled for 2 p.m., if needed.