'We've counted on them from Day 1'

When looking at the rosters of the state Final Four, a team might have a couple freshmen contribute along with a bunch of upperclassmen leading the way.Although Calvert has two of the best seniors in the state — All-Ohioans Nick Palm and Mason Johnson — the Senecas also have a youth wave.By wave … it's actually more like a tsunami.Losing some key pieces off a state semifinal squad a year ago, Calvert coach Matt Coleman said he knew some younger players would have to try to fill those roles.But filling those with freshmen for varsity baseball could some times be risky.Not for Coleman and the 30-2 Senecas.Coleman has played six freshmen (AJ Shoemaker, Connor Moyer, Cameron Moyer, Jacob Kidwell, Logan Ritzler and Cash Lee) this season, and that includes three of them in the top five of the batting order.For a state semifinalist, that just sounds absurd."We've counted on them from Day 1," Coleman said. "I mean, AJ's been in our two-hole headed from Day 1 of the season. He does a lot of things offensively that are important out of the two-hole and he has the best arm in the outfield. There were a couple league games this year where he threw someone out at home."Cameron, for being around 300 pounds, is very agile around the bases. He and his (twin) brother have been batting around the four and five hole this season and I just like how patient he was this season. His (batting) average isn't necessarily where he wants it to be, but gets on base at over a .500 clip, so that is one thing that's been impressive about him. I've watched him and Connor for a long time and how Connor protects Mason in the three hole, it's absolutely huge. They can't pitch around him. Connor hits the ball where it's pitched and he just hit that two-run single to left last week. They're impressive."Those might be the mainstays in the lineup, but Kidwell, Lee and Ritzler have provided some key contributions as well."And then, you know, you have Jake Kidwell, Cash and Logan Ritzler and they all had over 40 plate appearances too," Coleman said. "They played a lot of ball as well and I feel like we can pick and plug them in different spots. It's fun when you have those options and those, and they're good kids too."The stellar play hasn't just impressed their coach, it's impressed the seniors as well."It's special because we're all really close. It's a small school so it's a close bond and we've got a lot of guys that play a lot of baseball in their life, whether it's school or travel ball or anything," Johnson said. "So a lot of our freshmen are just really good because they're always playing baseball. Like it's not just in-season baseball. They're playing extra baseball after the season. So we've got confidence in them to make the right decisions and they know the game enough to play well and make good decisions whenever they're out there in any other situation."It's kind of amazing to see how freshmen can do that and you know, we knew they could do that just coming in the end of the season because we work with them in the preseason, you see how good they are and you even watch 'em when they're younger and you know how good they are. So, I mean we had a lot of confidence just coming in that they were just gonna be really good and we knew what they could do, so we just put 'em in the heart of that lineup and let 'em do their thing, kind of give 'em confidence and now they just show what they can do and they've just been doing it all year."Can they play? Absolutely.But how would they fit in? Especially on a team with experienced players coming off a regional run and then a state run last season.Pretty seamlessly, actually."Me and the buddies, we've talked about this since we can remember just looking at the high school team like when we were in seventh or eight grade," Shoemaker said. "We saw how good this team was and what a couple of freshmen from our class could contribute. To make this run and get back to where they were, it certainly was one of our goals we had in mind for a while."We like to think about being a freshmen as just taking in as much advice as we can from coaches, the senior leaders and even the junior leaders really," he said. "We just want to contribute as much as we can. And I think coach has put us in positions to help the team win and succeed. So we go into every practice and game with that mindset, the coaches put us in these positions to do something positive for the team."Regardless if they are freshmen or upperclassmen, mistakes are a part of baseball. Calvert, under coach Coleman have adopted a 'BAMO' motto.Breathe and move on.There's always the next play. His team and even freshmen have embraced that mentality to the fullest."We just have that 'BAMO' mentality, so you make a mistake, just breathe and move on," Cameron Moyer said. "We have seniors that help us in the dugout, other people in the dugout just helping us through, keeping us up at all times and they'll get us to the place where we need to be."The Senecas got a taste of the state tournament last season, but it ended quickly with a semifinal loss to Lincolnview.They're back for Round 2 this season and will face No. 1 Hiland (28-1) Thursday in Akron.While some players return from that state experience, the freshmen will play in that environment for the first time."Going into this week the mindset is like any other week," Shoemaker said. "It's just like you've been going into every game every week, whether it's having two games that are at state, state semifinals or the first week of the season, going into it as a team. And we just go into every week wanting as many wins as we can that week. That's what we've seemed to do and it's been alright this year."Connor Moyer added: "I mean me, Cameron and AJ have always talked about this, about going to state. And here we, going," he said. "At the beginning, we had some idea that we could really make a good run at it. It just shows all of the hard work in the offseason and at the beginning of the year. When the season started and has gone on, we've just been getting better and better."