Losing the majority of a varsity team to graduation always proves difficult to manage, while also creating lots of holes in a lineup. Couple that with a rotation in head-coaching duties, and it creates the perfect recipe for a challenge.

That is obviously the main buzz surrounding this year’s baseball team, with previous head coach Shane Hilstrom stepping down, with the long-tenured pitching coach Damien Tippett taking over the helm.

Tippett said that the transition “hasn’t been difficult at all,” saying that he has always been active in the way the program runs top to bottom.” The one change he did acknowledge is that “there’s been a few more administrative things I’ve had to do, as far as running the team, I organize practice plans and I make a lineup.”

Although the team lost 12 seniors last season, several JV standouts have now become impact juniors on this year’s varsity team. Junior Trevor Hauver realized that he is “the only returning starter, but I believe the team has really come together already.”

Senior Wacy Crenshaw agrees that “things haven’t really changed that much.”

After hitting .263 last year in a mostly utility role last season, Crenshaw wants to play the best he can, “to help my teammates be the best they can.”

Hauver hit .370 in 103 plate appearances last season. His experience will be valuable in gelling the mostly new team.

The team is hoping to build off of a state-playoff, 20-9 season that ended against Centennial in the postseason.

Early in the season the team will play in two tournaments that will have lots of competition that is most likely playoff-bound, according to Tippett. He added that these tournaments will have “Division I college prospects, and pro prospects up and down our opponents lineups in the first week.”

Hauver stated that the “expectation and goal is to definitely get a state championship, I think that is our main goal.”

The team began their season at the Horizon Tournament February 24 with a win against Boulder Creek.