 Well coming off an 8 and 13 season Bemidji softball graduated a handful of seniors will now turn to their youth to fill in those roles. The Jacks do return some key pieces from 2017 and are ready to slide right into contention and compete in the section. Three weeks in in the lumberjacks, no one things for certain. There's a lot of new faces that will take the diamond this season. They seem hungry. It's a great opportunity for them because when you lose nine kids, obviously there's a ton of spots opening up. There's some talent at the younger levels. We just need to see how well we can put that talent together. Nine seniors are gone from 2017, so spots need to be filled, but they're confident the competition will give them answers. We have a lot of new faces, but they have a lot of drive to want to get better and so I see a lot of potential in all of them, so I'm excited to get to play with them. Of the players returning those senior outfielder Samantha Edlin and junior infielder Avet Morgan look to set the tone defensively and at the top of the order. Tam, she's a very good leadoff hitter, so I think she can get us up on to the bases and I think she'll just lead the team and get everybody else going. We can get the top of our order on base. You know, Yvette was just over 500 last year in hitting. You would assume that as a junior, you know that that confidence would be there and it would she would just run with it and go and so you would think that that would be setting the table pretty well. During the season, what will the pitching staff look like? Well, the Jacks have option. We have a couple pictures stepping up to see and they've been working pretty hard and all that. They've improved a lot too. We've all improved, so it should be excited to see what they do. So once they finally get out of the gym and slide into the sand, they're ready to get things rolling and improve off last season. Compete every game and like I said, keep a positive mentality and hopefully for sections, we're hoping to win our first section game. Like we did last year, but also keep that momentum going. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.