As a first-year varsity baseball head coach last season, Mike Mihalik admits that he had to spend a lot of time on the things like scheduling and other duties that took away from his ability to truly coach a lot of kids.

Now, in his second season, Mihalik has that stuff down to a minimum and has been able to get back to helping make his players better, which is the part of the job that he really likes.

“Some things have definitely been easier,” he said. “I can spend more time on some other things that I wasn’t able to last year, just because it was year one and I was getting to know these guys.

“There are still a bunch of challenges. I’m spending so much time looking at video of pitchers and trying to figure out ways to get these guys better, but I don’t have to spend as much time on the logistics and I can spend more time coaching.”

With a roster consisting of four seniors and 13 juniors, there is plenty of experience to go around for a team that finished last season 13-10.

On the down side, the loss of some key players always hurts, but Mihalik believes there’s plenty of experience to draw from and things will only get better this season.

“I think that has more to do with the fact that this is year two with the coaching staff and a lot of things are just going a lot smoother,” said Mihalik. “I would say we are seeing things go a lot smoother this year, given that we do have those four seniors and a lot of the juniors coming back.”

Emmaus has played its two scrimmage games, but there are still some position battles going on in practice. The opener doesn’t come until next Wednesday, when the Hornets play at Allen, so there is some time for competition to continue and players to sort out just where they’ll fit on the team.

“We’ve still got some time where we can get some inter-squads in and let guys continue to compete against one another. There are some guys that have identified themselves as key guys for us this season,” said Mihalik.

The pitching is going to be especially interesting and Mihalik thinks it’s going to be the one area that will likely best define the team and how their season goes.

“That’s the biggest question mark this year,” admits Mihalik. “We’ve got Matt Lanzone, Todd Moxey, Tyler Kish coming back, and then Logan Foley and Cody Masters – Logan and Cody are guys that we’re going to be using out of the bullpen – but in terms of starting pitching, we’re going to be looking at the other three.

“We’ve got Dakota Capwell, who had moved out of the area, but is back. He’s a lefty who is going to help us out this year. The key is this year, throwing strikes. I think when our guys throw strikes we’ll have a chance to win. We’re just not in a position where we can give opponents a lot of walks and free bases.”

Mihalik believes that pitching is going to determine a lot in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference this season and that teams with strong pitching will be able to knock each other off, depending on some of the pitching matchups that take place.

“I think the teams that are typically up top are going to stay up top,” said Mihalik. “Parkland’s going to be good. Liberty’s going to be good. Stroudsburg and Pocono Mountain East are both going to be good. What makes all of those teams tough is that they all have some good pitching. What’s going to make it interesting is that if you have a team throwing their ace, they have the ability to take down any given team on that day, because some teams have that good of pitching. So that could be interesting.

“Then, there are some teams that just flat out hit, like Northampton. They’ve got a huge cluster of their guys coming back and those guys know how to hit the ball, so it’s going to be a tough league this year.”

While it may seem like a small change, the fact that Emmaus is moving over to Community Park for much of its varsity schedule is also going to be an added plus.

“It’s a better atmosphere,” said Mihalik. “It just comes down to that. I saw last year, we played a couple of games at the end of the year at Community Park and it just seemed like the kids played with a little more excitement, more energy, more enthusiasm, just from the feeling that there’s a crowd around and music. It’s what high school kids want out of high school baseball, and I understand that and respect that, and I want to do everything I can to give them that.”