Bremen Baseball Relies on Defense
By Ron Haramia
BREMEN � The good news for Bremen baseball coach Norm Sellers is that he has five seniors returning to the lineup as his 10th year at the helm begins.
The bad news is that with the graduated players most of the Lions� offense went with it.
�We lost 80 percent of our offense to graduation,� said Sellers, 174-85 lifetime at Bremen. �The strength of our team will be our defense and pitching, and that will give us an opportunity to win.�
Defensively, Bremen should be solid up the middle with seniors Marcus Dillon (catcher), Greg Neeley (shortstop) and Anthony Stamper (centerfield) manning those key positions.
Senior Josh Gramm will anchor the left side of the infield at third base.
Righthanded pitchers Jordan Leeper (senior) and Alex McIntyre (junior) will be given the ball on the mound most often to provide the pitching foundation for the squad.
�Fortunately I have a great group of young men to work with,� added Sellers. �They work hard and display a willingness to learn what it will take for us to be competitive.�
Top newcomers to the varsity include juniors Trent Miles (2B), Cody Henry (LF) and Drew Seitz (1B).
In order to match or surpass last year�s 16-9 record, Sellers knows it will be a stiff challenge playing in the Northern State Conference.
�The NSC is always competitive. Anybody could win the conference this year. There are five teams that return the ace of their pitching staff and each of those young men are capable of beating anybody.
�I definitely feel that John Glenn and Triton are the teams to beat. They have great pitching with quite a bit of experience coming back. But the key will be the team that can find that No. 2 pitcher to win the crucial conference games.
�We are going to have to play good fundamental baseball and execute in order to win the close games.�
Circle your calendars now for these key NSC games: April 21 � Triton at Bremen; May 2 � Bremen at John Glenn; May 7 � Bremen at Triton; and May 19 � John Glenn at Bremen.
The rest of the Lions� schedule looks like this (all games start at 4:30 p.m. unless noted):
April � 15 @ Bethany Christian, 16 Plymouth, 19 Tippecanoe Valley (DH) 11 a.m., 23 @ New Prairie, 25 @ LaVille, 26 Culver Academy (DH) 11 a.m., 28 Knox 4:45 p.m., 30 Jimtown;
May � 3 @ NorthWood 11 a.m., 5 Culver, 9 New Prairie , 10 @ South Central Tourney 9 a.m., 12 LaVille, 14 @ Knox, 16 @ Jimtown 7 p.m., 21 @ Culver, 24 Rochester (DH) 11 a.m., 26 Fairfield 9 a.m., 27 @ Argos , 28 Goshen.
June � 2 Sectionals TBA.
Argos
Argos hopes to prevent duplicating last year�s campaign, where it won just two times.
Coach Marlo Anderson, who welcomes back Cody Brown, Steve Viers and Eric Stockberger, thinks eight or 10 victories this season is a reasonable (and attainable) goal for the Dragons.
�We�re a pretty young team. We�re going to try to get the kids on a positive track, get some positive morale and play together as a team,� Anderson said. �We�re going to try to take it one game at a time. We�re going to try to get ready for the sectional and maybe do some damage there.�
(Pilot Sports staff writer Paul Dendiu contributed to this story).
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