First it was basketball.

Now it may be baseball.

The Triton Trojan basketball team went 16-6, its best season in years. Now the Triton Trojan baseball team hopes to do the same.

Triton's baseball team went 15-10 last year, and head coach Jim Shively expects his players to be even better this year.

"I've been a varsity head coach for four years, and this should by far be our best team," he said.

Why is he optimistic? Because he has returning starters. Only one player - starting pitcher Ryan Hensley - graduated.

Regulars back include catcher David Sauer, first baseman Kyle Gould, second baseman Brad Hargrave, third baseman Kevin Oxley, shortstop Cory Monesmith, center fielder Scott Blackford and right fielder Derek Ganshorn.

"That leaves only left field," Shively said.

Triton's offense was explosive last year, and with the same players back, nothing figures to change this year. The Trojans stole 124 bases in 25 games, an average of nearly five stolen bases per game.

Monesmith led the team in batting average (.506), runs batted in (36) and stolen bases (25). Blackford hit .443 with 29 RBIs and 20 stolen bases. Oxley hit .381, and Sauer hit .364.

"Our strength will be our offense, as far as both hitting and running," Shively said. "We should be pretty good defensively. Our only question mark will be pitching. Ryan was our No. 1 pitcher."

Stepping in his place will be junior lefthander Jeff Salisbury. Salisbury started as a freshman and was the No. 2 starter the last two years. Senior righthanders Monesmith and Hargrave will be the other two starters.

If these three pitchers come through as Shively expects them to, he knows his team should improve on its 8-6 Northern State Conference record.

"We had three of our seniors start as freshmen," Shively said. "We've been building up to this point. Hopefully we win the close games and take care of the people we should take care of."

Wawasee Warriors

While Triton basically returns a whole team, Wawasee coach John Blunk must replace his infield players. His Warriors went 9-16 overall and 4-8 in the Northern Lakes Conference last year. Six seniors from that team graduated.

"We have to fill first, second, third, catcher and pitchers," Blunk said. "Basically, I have my outfield back."

One of Blunk's biggest concerns in practices has been getting his infield defense in order.

"We're still working on infield defense," he said. "There may be days I start three sophomores in the infield. It all depends who is on the mound.

"I know Josh Mitchell, a senior, will be at shortstop when he's not pitching. Other than that, I'm still trying to figure out who I'm going to play."

Starting pitchers for the Warriors include senior Rod Holterman, junior Farhan Haq, junior Brad Swope and Mitchell.

Junior Jeff Beer and sophomore Tony May will handle relief duties.

"Our pitching should be fair," Blunk said. "It won't be overwhelming, because we don't have hard throwers. We do have people who will throw strikes."

Swope and Shawn Johnson are Blunk's returning outfielders.

Blunk said the NLC should be as competitive as ever.

"Plymouth has seven starters back from a semistate team," he said. "Northridge is better. Goshen has 13 seniors. Concord's players are playing under their coach for the third year.

"Those are the top four teams."

And his team? Blunk is eyeing the end of the season. He hopes the infield defense that looks inexperienced now won't look that way then.

"We don't want to start off playing our best ball now and be terrible at the end of the year," Blunk said. "We want to be consistent each game."

Warsaw Tigers

Warsaw coach Will Shepherd lost six starting seniors from last year's team to graduation. All will be hard to replace, but especially two stand out.

Starting pitchers Chris Walmer and Mike Whitaker, who won the majority of the games for the Tigers, are gone.

"No question, losing Chris Walmer and Mike Whitaker on the mound will undoubtedly be the biggest challenge for me as a coach, to develop pitching and quality catching," Shepherd said.

Shepherd will try to do this with a young team.

"We're going to have to do a lot more teaching this year because we are so young," he said. "We have only one kid with a lot of varsity experience and one other kid with about three weeks of experience."

The player with the most varsity experience is junior Craig Thomas. He played right field last year, and he moves to shortstop this year.

Unlike Manchester, Tippecanoe Valley and Wawasee, three other young teams, Shepherd has nailed down nearly all of his starting position players. At least for now, that is.

Joe Stanley will play either first or third. Matt Kloser will either catch or play second. Andy Holst will play third. Pat Riley, Sam Wihebrink and Rory Shaffer will be in the outfield.

"Unless something unforeseen happens, those are the guys we will open up with against St. Joe," he said.

Shepherd plans to have righthanders Evan Miller, Wihebrink and Holst in his starting rotation.

Last year Shepherd inherited a team with a .192 batting average. That team improved on that average.

Shepherd figures this team will be even a better hitting team.

"What concerned me last year was how we were going to improve the hitting," he said. "I think offensively, this will be a group I can develop my philosophy with. They will be aggressive. That's what I appreciate."

So hitting should be OK. But pitching and defense could be another story, Shepherd says.

"What we have yet to do is solidify the two most important areas in high school baseball, and that's pitching and defense," he said. "There are places on our defense where we are solid; there are places on our defense where we need some work."

As far as the NLC goes, Shepherd says it appears to be all Plymouth.

"I think the conference will be brutal," he said. "Plymouth is ranked No. 6 in the preseason and without a doubt is head and shoulders above everyone else as far as returning talent goes.

"We'll have a battle on our hands."

Last year's Warsaw team went 18-13 overall and 7-5 in the NLC. But most of those players are gone. Shepherd says the new players, even though they may not have been on the 18-13 team, have also been successful in years past.

"They enjoyed a lot of success at the junior varsity level," he said. "They went 18-6. They now need to step it up a level to varsity competition."

Tippecanoe Valley Vikings

Pat O'Connell's biggest task as first-year baseball coach at Tippecanoe Valley wasn't teaching baserunning or baseball strategy.

No, his main task has been getting his players to believe in themselves.

"The biggest thing is to convince the players mentally that they can win," he said. "They haven't had great success the last few years, and their confidence is down. That brought the fundamental part of the game down."

O'Connell, who replaced Doug Heinold after he resigned, sees changes already. Their fundamentals, he says, have improved "dramatically" from the first day he worked with them.

Valley won five games last year. Even though that team had only five wins, O'Connell says that talented players graduated off that team, including Keith Jones, Wes Prater and Reuben Plank, among others.

Key returners Jason Miller, Bo Wohead and Terry Engstrand will lead Valley's hitting attack.

Eight seniors and 13 juniors are playing for the Vikings this year. Eight juniors could pitch.

"I haven't established any kind of starting rotation at this point," O'Connell said. "No one is overpowering. The numbers are there, and that's what I like to have. I'll work with all of them.

"Our juniors look pretty decent."

The early part of the season could be rough on the Vikings.

Two players are serving seven-game suspensions. O'Connell believes both are potential varsity starters.

Then there is the brutal schedule. O'Connell wants to instill confidence in his players, but they will have to build that on the road. Six of their first seven games are away.

O'Connell remains optimistic about his team.

"Since it's my first year, I don't know what level of play we'll be at or where our opponents will be at," he said. "I have 18 varsity players who are all fairly close together. We'll be competitive, and we'll win some games."

More importantly, O'Connell sees something else in his players. And that something else, he says, is the best thing he could have asked for.

"I see the love of baseball in their eyes," he said. "That's all I need."

Manchester Squires

Last year Manchester's baseball team went 14-8 and tied for first place in the Three Rivers Conference.

Coach Ron Eberly had a veteran team then with 10 seniors and eight starters.

Now he starts over, save a player here or there.

"We're very inexperienced," he said. "We have three kids back who played any varsity ball."

Of those three, the key returner may be senior Brandon Reimer. Reimer is a starting pitcher, so if he's on, he alone could keep the Squires in games.

Eberly has had to do much teaching with this team. Most of the practices until just last week stressed fundamentals. Only then has Eberly gotten his team working on game situations.

"Hitting-wise, nothing stands out," Eberly said. "We'll try to make defense our strength. Defense is one thing you can try to control.

"We're hitting the base-running fundamentals, trying to control that so we don't make those mistakes. We're trying to be as routine as we can now."

Eberly tabs Northfield, Southwood and Oak Hill as the teams to beat in the TRC.

The goal for his Squires is basic.

"Our motto is make improvement every day," he said. "We'll look toward that for success. I doubt if we will be successful in the wins and losses, especially with our schedule.

"We play six games the first week, so we'll play a lot of kids and go from there. They are trying to learn. That's the one positive thing."

Whitko Wildcats

Tippecanoe Valley baseball coach Pat O'Connell, when asked to size up the TRC, mentioned Northfield as a favorite to win the conference.

Then he added that there was one team to watch out for: Whitko.

Whitko won only three games last year and lost more than 20, but yes, things could be different this year.

Very different.

The Wildcats lost only three seniors from last year's squad, so next to Triton, Whitko has the most veteran team around. The Wildcats also have a new coach, Randy Hart. He replaces Dave Henson.

O'Connell said the most important task at Valley is building his team's confidence.

Hart said the same thing about his program.

"The most important thing is to instill some confidence in the kids and stability," he said. "You can take seniors on this team who have had four different coaches. We need to make them believe in themselves.

"I was there last year, so at least there is a little familiarity."

Practice is only weeks old, but Hart senses changes already.

"I think we're more positive," he said. "I'm pleased with their effort this spring. We talked a great deal about confidence. I told them it doesn't make any difference what I believe or what anyone else believes. They have to believe in themselves."

Hart says catcher Cory Sleighter, first/third baseman Dustin Patrick, outfielder/left-handed pitcher Corey Green and shortstop Scott Craft will anchor this team.

"I think defensively, we'll be consistent," he said. "We didn't have any big position changes. The kids who are playing are where they were at last year.

"We're quick, so we'll be aggressive on the basepaths. Probably the two areas I am concerned with as far as consistency are hitting and pitching. But there is a lot of talent."

Hart, for one, believes in his team.

"With our mix of seniors and underclassmen, I think we will be pretty good," he said. "If they believe they can be a different Whitko team, they can be. They have the talent." [[In-content Ad]]