With a 12-4 record in the EPC last season and a 17-9 mark overall, the Parkland baseball team had a good season. It stopped short of being great because of a 2-1 loss to Freedom in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference semifinals and a 6-4 loss to Easton in the District 11 championship game.

That team was inexperienced and it showed at times during the season, but its pitching carried it for much of the season and was a key part of its success.

This year, the pitching is even better, and deeper, and there are more experienced players that should help the offense to be improved this season as well. The added experience means that growing pains are a thing of the past for Parkland and they come into the season as one of the favorites in the EPC.

The Trojans return four pitchers, all of whom would be among the best on just about any staff in the Lehigh Valley.

Mike Jenkins, Ryan Giovenco and Matt Mellinger are all seniors this season, giving Parkland a big three to start with. Then, when you add junior AJ Palumbo into the equation, it’s easy to see why the depth of the staff is the envy of a lot of teams.

As they say in the commercials though, ‘wait, there’s more.’

Harsha Bollu was one of the top young pitchers around as a sophomore and then missed all of last season with an injury. He’s reportedly still not back to 100 percent, but he could be able to help the staff at some point in the season.

After being pounded 12-0 in the season opener against Easton last season, Parkland rebounded and gave up just over three runs per game the rest of the way and gave Easton everything it could handle in the district championship to show just how far back the team had come over the season.

Offensively, Parkland averaged over five runs per game last season. Combine that with the even deeper pitching that Parkland figures to have this season and it’s easy to see why the Trojans are favored to be a much more formidable foe and should go much deeper into the postseason tournaments.

The only question now, is how much cooperation will Parkland get from the weather to get this powerful team on to a field dry enough to play baseball.

Parkland is scheduled for three road games, with trips to Bethlehem Catholic and North Penn on Friday and Saturday, and then the hike to Stroudsburg to play the Mounties next Tuesday.