Baseball – Pitching the strength for a young Hornets squad who must replace a number of key starters to graduation. PREVIEW

Cole Moreau is one of the top returnees to this year's baseball team. Photo: Nathan Lewis.

Coach – Jeremy Haas (6th year)

Assistants – Shawn Betz, Trey Hinkle

Last year – 13-9 overall/13-3 EPC; Qualified for EPC Tournament – Lost to Becahi 11-1; Qualified for District XI Tournament – Lost to Northampton 5-0

Players lost to graduation – OF/P Wiley Fleck (.233), OF/P Noah Hogan (.333, 2nd Team EPC), Inf. Chad Kauffman (.488, 1st Team EPC), OF/Inf. Colin Wilson (.288), SS Emmit Budick (.277), Inf/OF Cohen Schadler (.373, 2nd Team Utility), C Michael Kernechel, C Dayne Schmidt, P/OF Shane Ohl, Inf/P Josiah Williams (.306, 1st Team Utility), Inf/OF Daniel Rohlsen

Returnees – Jr. P/OF/Inf. Cole Moreau (5-3, 1.64 ERA, 2nd Team EPC), Sr. Inf/OF/P Drew McGeehan (.250), Sr. Util Aaron Fleetwood, Jr. P Robert Barnes, Jr. P Jaden Betz, Sr. P Andrew Lee, Sr. C Owen Haas, Sr. C/OF Bryan Kain

Newcomers – Soph. Inf. Josh Diaz, Jr. P/Util Ryan Hummell, Soph. Util Cole Geiger, Jr. P/OF Connor Horwath, Sr. OF Logan Ravier, Jr. C Alex Harris, Jr. Util Cole George, Jr. P/1B/OF Chase Simmons, Jr. 1B Leonardo Soto, Jr. 3B Drayce Schmidt, Jr. P/OF Zach Ehritz,

Season-opener – March 14 vs Blue Mountain, Home

Follow the team on social media: ‘X’ @Emmaussports, Facebook: Emmaus baseball, Broadcasts: Eastern Pa Sports Network

Coach Haas – “We have a very young team. This is probably the youngest team I’ve had since I’ve been here at Emmaus. We lost eight of our nine positional starters to graduation. The one difference about us this year is that we have a good amount of pitching and pitching wins you baseball games. If you at least have a pitching staff, you can fill in and around that.

“We’re going to do things in a very different way this year. A lot of people point towards Cole Moreau coming back because he is the only hold over from the last two years and he’s a tremendous asset for us to have, but we have four, five, six even seven other pitchers that I really like so pitching should be a strong point. There’s a lot of young talent in program that we’re excited about.”