The Dolores Bears opened the 2016 baseball season on Tuesday with a 23-1 loss to Moab.
But after just one week of practices, head coach Rusty Hamilton wasn’t concerned after the lopsided defeat.
“I’m upbeat because that’s kind of what I expected,” he said on Wednesday. “But I saw a lot of promise out of my freshman that I hadn’t seen play yet.”
The Bears graduated ten seniors from last year’s league championship squad, including five starters, so Hamilton and assistants Toby McCoy and Troy Mott will need production from their large group of underclassmen.
Seniors Josh McCoy, Zach Hartle, and Jace Papoff, juniors Brandon Ward and Tyler Nance and sophomores Justin Purkat, Tel Hamilton and David Schmittel all return for the Bears. But with a handful of newcomers, Hamilton is still moving players around to find locks at certain positions.
With new pitching limitations implemented by CHSAA this season, Hamilton believes a solid pitching rotation will be a key to success. Although he doesn’t have a rotation set yet, he said that the Bears have four or five good pitchers to work with.
Still early in the season, Hamilton has plenty of time to move players around and solidify positions.
And the Bears are back in action with games on Friday and Saturday.
Dolores hosts Monticello in its home-opener today at 1 p.m., and the Bears will play Hotchkiss at Cortez tomorrow at 1 p.m.