With a new cast ready to take the field, Northampton’s baseball team is optimistic they again can remain a headliner.

However, the Konkrete Kids likely will see their results surface later in the season.

Northampton will enter the 2017 campaign with the loss of 10 seniors to graduation in June, two of the more prominent being three-year infield starters Will Stackhouse and catcher Ian Luberti.

The Kids advanced to the districts playoffs for the sixth straight season last year and produced an overall 10-10 mark during the regular season before being eliminated in the opening round of the playoffs.

The Kids realize they will need to put everything in its proper perspective.

“We have some big shoes to fill,” said head coach Mick Sugra. “We’ll try and pick up the pieces. We were in a spot a few years ago when we had a strong junior class that helped us for two years. Now, we’ll have to go through another process.

“Our pitching let us down in spots last year, but we have some pretty consistent bats.”

Sugra will look to reap the benefits of his JV squad from last season that produced an overall 17-3 mark.

“We had a number of good players and we’ll have to see how they can adapt,” said Sugra. “It can be a totally different ballgame for them. But we are optimistic that they can have good seasons for us.

“We’ll have a number of them competing for positions.”

The Kids loom as having a deep pitching staff this spring, as Sugra can have as many as eight arms in the mix. Kyle Sermon and Matt Hutching are the key holdovers. Sermon picked up three wins and posted a team-low 1.79 ERA.

“Kyle (Sermon) had a strong year for us and Matt Hutchings was also there for us,” Sugra said. “But this could be pitching by committee. We do have a number of guys we can run out there. We’ll have eight guys, but could go as high as 10.

“Hopefully, we can keep opponents guessing. If we can score runs on a consistent basis, I like our chances with these pitchers.”

Sugra knows his division in the East Penn Conference again will be stacked with Emmaus, Whitehall, and Nazareth retuning a healthy core of arms.

He believes time can be on their side.

“We’ll see,” Sugra said in reference to his team’s chances. “Hopefully, we are there at the end. Our schedule will be a challenging one, but if we can jell, we can be pretty competitive.”