Each of the last two seasons, the Northwestern Lehigh varsity softball team reached the District 11 playoffs only to be eliminated by Tamaqua both years.

Last year’s team finished 11-7 and looking at this year’s roster, you might think the Lady Tigers may take some lumps this year because their roster features just two seniors and two juniors.

Having such a young roster could be a problem, but for head coach Josh Zimmerman, having young players is an exciting opportunity that could make this team better than it was a year ago.

“This is the best group of freshmen that I’ve had in my tenure at Northwestern,” said Zimmerman. “Both hitting the ball and making the right plays, having the instincts, they’ve been doing very well. As for coming together as a team, they’ve done really well early on and I couldn’t be happier with how far they’ve come in such a short amount of time.”

It’s always tough to gauge how a team will play in the regular season through a couple weeks of practice and one scrimmage, but it appears that this team will be able to produce a few more runs than it did last season. The ability to put up more runs would give senior pitcher Emily Akelaitis a bit more of a buffer than she has had in the past.

Akelaitis teams with younger sister, junior Anna Akelaitis to give Northwestern Lehigh an all sister battery that is very familiar with each other. In high school softball, a strong pitcher-catcher combination can take a team a long way and that’s the hope for this year’s version of the Lady Tigers.

“I would say I’m 100 percent happier with where we are right now compared to a year ago,” Zimmerman said. “There were always a couple of holes that we had in our lineup in the past, but this is probably the most complete team top to bottom that we’ve had. We don’t have a lot of depth, but the top nine or 10 girls are going to keep us going on a daily basis and I have a lot of confidence in them,” Zimmerman said.

Offensively, Zimmerman will look to senior Ashley Sisco to be the main run producer after she led the team with 17 RBI last season. Molly Mitman drove in 11 runs and Emily Akelaitis was also in double-digits in RBI with 10.

“It’s going to be tough to get these girls out and it’s tough to argue with the success that Emily has had, so with the added offense, we should be able to get her some runs,” said Zimmerman. “I don’t think there are many other pitchers around who are as good with a lead as Emily is when she’s on the mound, so we should have a better balance this season than in the past.”

Zimmerman is more concerned about the quality of seniors that he has on his team than the quantity and with Emily Akelaitis and Ashley Sisco as his two seniors, he’s confident that they will be able to provide plenty of leadership along the way. Juniors Natasha Farmer and Anna Akelaitis have also been around the program long enough to fill in any leadership holes for the younger players.

“These seniors have been around and they know what it takes to win and it helps having Emily there, who has basically pitched for me for four years now. She anchors everything and sort of keeps everybody calm,” Zimmerman said of his senior pitcher. “Ashley Sisco has really stepped into a leadership role and she keeps practice loose, but at the same time, she keeps everybody on the same page and she gets them focused when it’s time to get down to business.”