The good news for the Calvary Lutheran baseball team is it's pretty confident in one of the three key areas of the game as the season begins today.
"I think we'll hit the ball," Calvary coach Rusty Bourg said. "The last couple days, I noticed they're hitting the ball hard, making good contact, putting it in play. So we'll see."
The bad news for the Lions? The other two-thirds of the equation are still a little hazy.
"We've got some guys who can throw strikes, but beyond the first few, they're very untested," Bourg said. "I'm not sure how that's going to go. Like most high-school teams, the key is, what do you have after your first pitcher?
"And at this point, the defense is a little shaky."
The Lions, who start the season at 4:30 p.m. today at New Haven, have to replace graduated No. 1 starter Wyatt Archer.
"Wyatt gave us 40-something innings on the bump and we may struggle a bit finding somebody to fill in where he left off," Bourg said. "We've got guys capable of throwing strikes. We're working on someone to have Wyatt's bulldog mentality. That really helps."
Beau Monson, a senior, moves into the role of No. 1 starter after serving as the No. 2 last year.
"If Beau is on the mound, we've got a chance to win," Bourg said. "The only problem is he can't pitch every game. We're going to have to pick and choose where we're going to use him.
"(Senior) Hance Sommerer will be our No. 2 guy. I don't remember how many innings Hance threw last year, maybe 20, but he's going to have to pick up a few extra."
Alex Flannigan, a sophomore, will hold down the No. 3 role.
"He throws the ball pretty well and will see quite a few innings," Bourg said. "After that, it's kind of hit and miss."
Making the defense a bit of a question mark is just the uncertainty regarding some positions, including third base. Monson will play shortstop when not pitching, while sophomore Colin Bernskoetter will slide over from his normal position of second base when Monson does throw.
Bradley MacLaughlin will play first base for the Lions.
"He's a senior and he knows what's going on," Bourg said. "He's very solid defensively. He's coming off some offseason shoulder surgery. He's a kid that threw 15-20 innings last year that I'm not going to count on to do that. He says he might be capable of pitching a little bit at the end of April, but that's going to be up to him."
When Bernskoetter plays shortstop, sophomores Carson Killday and Ray Eickmeyer could see time at second.
"This is Ray's first year of baseball," Bourg said. "He's an athlete, it's just that he hasn't played baseball in awhile, so I'm not sure where his fit is going to be. He's swinging the bat OK and could play some outfield."
Others in the mix in the outfield include sophomore Alex Flannigan, junior Tristan Clementich and sophomore Drew Gooden.
"I'm pretty comfortable with the batting order," Bourg said. "We should score some runs, I just hope we don't have to score 18 runs to win. That would be a bummer."
So it would be nice to get the pitchers into midseason form as close to the early part of the schedule as possible.
"Most of these kids played basketball, so fitness-wise, they're in pretty good cardiovascular condition," Bourg said. "It's just that the arm strength isn't there right now.
"We're trying to do a little bit every day. I ask them every day, "How's your arm, 1 to 10?' One is, "I'm thinking about killing myself because it hurts so bad,' and 10 is, "It feels so good I would take Mom to the prom.' If I can keep them up around six, seven or eight, I know we're in pretty good shape."
Bourg added he'd like to have a little more time to prepare, as Calvary's only been outside five times or so in the preseason. But the Lions have been able to work around it thanks to changes at the school in the past few years.
"My first year we didn't even have a gym," Bourg said. "Now we do and we've got some mush balls we can hit. We've also got a weight room and a tee, so we can get some things done inside. In the past, not so much.
"As far as being ready, we're about as ready as we can be at this point in time."