The Parkland baseball roster took a hit with the graduation of three hitters who all batted above .330 last season. In addition to those losses, other key bats left for college, leaving the offense as a question mark coming into the season.

The good news is that Parkland seems to have a machine hidden somewhere deep in the high school that keeps cranking out pitchers, so the Trojans will still be a team to contend with both in the East Penn Conference and District 11 this season.

If you wanted a sneak peek at how Parkland is going to win games this season, all you had to do was look at Monday’s opening win over Northampton. The Trojans manufactured two runs, both of which came with two outs, and the pitching didn’t allow any hits in a 2-1 win in eight innings.

Pitchers Adam Smith and Koby Staivecki teamed up to keep the Konkrete Kids hitless, with a walk and an error leading to the only Northampton run in the game.

“I think this is what we’re going to do this year,” said Parkland head coach Kurt Weber. “We have to scratch out some runs and then rely on our pitching and defense. I think we can get a little bit better offensively, but especially early when it’s cold, we’re not going to score a lot of runs.”

The Trojans truly did scratch out their two runs on Tuesday. They scored a first-inning run on a two-out single by Matt Ervolina, who stole second and scored when Josh Miller singled to give Parkland a 1-0 lead.

In the top of the eighth, again with two outs and nobody on base, Phil Schoch tripled to right and Jeremy Piatkiewicz followed with a base-hit that found its way through the infield allowing Schoch to score what would be the game-winning run.

Smith is at the front of a deep rotation and pitched six no-hit innings in Monday’s game with the only run scoring on a hit batter, a sacrifice bunt and an error. Staivecki allowed just one walk and no hits over the final two innings to get the win.

“We have six or seven guys that we really like and it will be interesting to see when they get their opportunities,” said Weber. “The two guys who pitched today (Smith and Staivecki) got a lot of experience last year and we’ll rely on them early on in the bigger games and hope that the juniors come along. We’re pretty excited about the pitching.”

While an error led to a run in Tuesday’s season opener, there was a lot of leather being flashed around the field as well. Austin Imler made a diving catch in left field after a long run that carried him well into foul territory, saving a run for Parkland. The Trojan defense figures to back up the pitching very well, making it difficult for other teams to score runs.

“We’re extremely strong up the middle and we’re very comfortable with our middle infielders and our catchers, George Jenkins is one of the better defensive catchers around, so we’ll catch them if we get to them,” said Weber. “Pitching and defense lead to championships and we’re strong in both of those areas, so we should be in good shape.”

The Skyline Division of the EPC figures to be a tough one this season and Parkland will have to fight its way through tough competition to defend its back-to-back EPC championships. Emmaus has a deep roster with 12 seniors, many of whom have a lot of varsity experience and they can boast two Division 1 recruits. Northampton and Nazareth are also going to be tough teams, although the Konkrete Kids are also looking to replace a number of big bats in their lineup and the Blue Eagles have some concerns with their offense and seek to improve defensively, as well.