It’s difficult to gauge the expectations for the North Fork High School baseball team.
The Miners are coming off a Class 3A Western Slope League championship season where they graduated 10 seniors, many of whom played key roles on the squad.
Still, there’s a lot of returning talent. Although there’s some rebuilding involved when replacing so many talented players, North Fork coach Dakota Coats doesn’t want to call it a rebuilding season.
“It’s tough because we graduated so many seniors,” Coats said. “I don’t want to say it’s a rebuilding season, but we’re looking for these younger guys to step up. Of course, we’d love for the expectation to be that we’ll win another league title. But our first goal is to be competitive because this league is going to be difficult. You have Delta, Coal Ridge and even Basalt is going to be tough.”
Back for the Miners is Yandel Guereque, who led the team in home runs (two) and stolen bases (35), as well as pitching appearances (14) and strikeouts (98 in 61 innings pitched). He sported a 2.75 ERA and Coats said Guereque’s impact extends into leadership.
“Yandel is definitely stepping up as a lead-by-example guy,” Coats said. “We also have Lane Allen, who’s helping do that with younger kids, too. We’re still waiting for a vocal leader to step up, but that’s something that will come with time and guys getting more comfortable being able to speak up.”
Other key starters back include junior Hunter Moreno, who had a team-high .507 batting average, and sophomore Payson Pene, who notched a team-best .582 on-base percentage and was one of two Miners with multiple triples last season.
The Miners open their season by hosting Alamosa 4 p.m. Friday at North Fork High School.
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