When looking back at his team’s season, Northampton head baseball coach Mick Sugra saw the campaign as one with some unanswered questions.

The Konkrete Kids finished the regular season with a 10-10 record and then were eliminated in the opening round of districts, losing to Liberty 12-2.

It was a team returning veteran leadership that posted a 15-9 record and won two games in the district playoffs last season.

“I don’t know about this season,” said Sugra, who completed his sixth year at the helm. “I expected us to play and do better. Other teams in our division and some others were just flat out better.

“There were so many teams that were either 10-8 or 10-10 and in the playoffs. Some of them moved on. But it was what it was during the season.”

One glaring stat in the Kids’ favor was their amount of strikeouts. They struck out 28 fewer times than in the previous five years. However, the results didn’t translate into offensive success. The Kids struggled to score runs all season.

Northampton’s offense slowed when starters Shane Aster, Mike Kovalchik, and Jon Miller all went down with injuries.

Senior Nick DeMieri posted a team-high five wins for the Kids.

“We stung the ball, but we seemed to hit it right at people,” stated Sugra. “We didn’t strike out, but we didn’t score runs either. We knew pitching was going to be a key for us. We had some good pitching efforts, but we didn’t score enough runs for them. They (pitchers) also gave up too many runs on too many occasions.”

“Nick (DeMieri) had only one loss last year and he had four this year. We also had trouble finding a consistent number two guy behind him this year. Shane Aster was hitting over .400 when he broke his pinky (finger)”

The Kids will lose 10 seniors – all of their position starters – and they will look to an impressive junior varsity team that had a 17-3 record last season.

Among the veteran starters moving on are first baseman Ian Csencsits, catcher Ian Luberti, and third baseman Will Stackhouse, all of whom have been fixtures in the Kids’ plans.

However, Sugra isn’t deterred by the thought of a new nucleus.

Yet, it won’t detract his new club from striving to achieve districts for the seventh consecutive season.

“It will be a fresh start,” offered Sugra. “We will be going back to the drawing board. We do have a number of good pitchers on the ninth and 10th grade level. Our JV team was outstanding this year.

“It will be interesting. We feel like we do have enough people to put it all together again. We just have to be consistent.”