You can say it's a year of redemption for Freemansburg's NORCO legion team.

After missing out on the playoffs for only the second time in 13 years last year, Freemansburg hopes to get back into the postseason with this year's dominated squad of Freedom players.

Head coach Chris Medei knows that after last year's 12-10 mark left them out of the playoffs due to a tiebreaker with Hellertown for the division title, that the returning crop of players on the roster are motivated to get back to what Freemansburg baseball is all about.

"We want to win our division, get to the playoffs and make a run at the championship," Medei said. "I think the returning kids felt that we underachieved last year and they're on a mission. Missing the playoffs isn't how we normally operate and the kids took that to heart."

Medei features a roster with six, 16-year-olds, which is the most he's ever had, but his top returning player is NCCC's Ricky Scott who mans left field.

Freedom's Nick Mazzella (P), Jarrett Clymer (CF), Josh Clymer (3B), Zak Gagnon (RF) and Dan Corvino (SS) round out Medei's top players this summer.

"We have some depth at pitching and have been good on defense," said Medei of his squad that sits at 3-3 currently, "but we've struggled offensively so far. I think that's mostly because of the change to wooden bats. You're not going to get that three-run homer anymore and the kids have to learn to adjust. As coaches, I love that we have to be more tactical with our approach now, but it takes some time for kids to adjust to that as well."

With Monday's game against Nazareth marking their only home encounter of the week, Freemansburg hits the road to East Stroudsburg on Wednesday, Stroudsburg on Friday and at the Wanderers on Saturday.

By this time next week, Medei hopes his team will find their groove.

"We always start off slow because I have three different groups of kids from three programs and I have to teach them things my way," he said of his cast of players from Freedom, Bethlehem Catholic and Notre Dame-GP. "This is the time of year that we get things going."