Pitching and defense are two of the best ways to ensure a competitive season on the diamond and that’s the formula for success that Freedom’s baseball team looks to employ this spring.

The Patriots lost some valuable pieces to graduation, but head coach Nick D’Amico knows the next man up mentality has to hit home for his group heading into 2016.

“It’s always tough replacing players that helped you win a division title,” said D’Amico of last year’s success, “but we have a great group of players that have put their time in and can’t wait to show what they can do.”

Returning for the Pates include Sr. 3B-P John Yocum; Sr. OF David Bast; Sr. IF-P Alex Thomas; Sr. C Jared Danscecs; Sr. 1B-DH Mario McIntyre and Jr. 1B-P Evan Callahan.

Newcomers Jr. 3B Jake Petro; Jr. 2B Tom Bonilla and So. Alec Huertas hope to fill holes from graduation losses.

After last season’s 13-9 campaign saw the Pates win the East Penn Conference Steel Division, first round losses in the EPC tournament to Easton and an opening round defeat to Pleasant Valley in the District 11 4A tournament ended their season prematurely.

With the talent coming back for Freedom this year, D’Amico feels his team can compete to get back into both tournaments.

“Pitching, defense and team speed are some of our stronger areas,” he said. “We have great team depth and bring back a lot of experience from last year’s team. We need to find ways to put pressure on the defense. I think we can do that with our team speed. I feel we have a good group of players that have high goals for this season. They need to continue to work hard and good things will happen.”

The Patriots opened the season with a 7-4 victory over Southern Lehigh last week and a 14-7 win over Wilson last Saturday to kickoff their season with back-to-back wins over Colonial League foes.

The Pates get into EPC action this week as they travel to Northampton on Wednesday and take a road trip to Pleasant Valley on Saturday.