LEWISTON, Maine -- Head coach Jon Martin wants one thing for his baseball program this season.

"I want to see these guys get on the field," Martin said. "We haven't played a real game in more than a year."

Last year, the Bobcats played nine games, the last of which was a 9-3 win over Endicott on March 8 before the season got shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Bates gets on the field again this Saturday with a doubleheader on the road against Saint Joseph's College of Maine. It will be a season of doubleheaders for the Bobcats, nine of them in fact. All doubleheader games will be seven innings long. 

The Bobcats start NESCAC play on Saturday, April 17 with a doubleheader at Trinity. Bates will play 12 conference games and then the top team from each division will square off in a best-of-three match-up to determine the 2021 NESCAC champion. Bowdoin has opted out of the season so the Bobcats need to finish ahead of Tufts, Trinity and Colby to earn a spot in the championship series.

Bates lost 12 seniors from 2020 to graduation and the Bobcats are missing a few key players who are studying remotely this semester but Martin is "excited about the 28 guys we have here on campus." 

The Bobcats have six seniors this year and they are all captains.

"They are a great group of guys and they have been through the wringer with their whole baseball career," Martin said. "They are resilient. They want to play. They want to put this thing together and get out there." 

Two of those six senior captains are pitchers. Seniors Peter Schuldt (Winnetka, Ill.) and Henri Pratt (Pebble Beach, Calif.) will lead a young pitching staff. Martin expects Schuldt to start some games and for Pratt to mainly work out of the bullpen. Schuldt has five career starts entering this season while Pratt looks to regain his sophomore year form (six appearances, no runs allowed) after only appearing in one game last year due to the shortened season.  

The Bobcats are still working on getting pitch counts up and Martin anticipates pitchers having to serve different roles.

"They need to be prepared to start one week and come out of the bullpen the next week," Martin said. "We have to throw strikes. If we throw strikes we'll be in every game."

Junior Grant Iuliano (Waltham, Mass.) is a 6-foot-5 right-hander who has looked strong in bullpen sessions this spring. He made eight appearances with three starts as a first-year in 2019 and made one appearance out of the bullpen last year.

Junior LHP Braden Karess (Boxborough, Mass.) is a reliever who can pitch back-to-back days and junior RHP Ian Tolis (Madison, Conn.) throws hard, with an upper-80s fastball. Karess made a team-high four appearances last year and Tolis has four career starts under his belt.

Among the sophomores, utility man Tyler Attal (Los Angeles) and infielder Henry Jamieson (St. Simons Island, Ga.) will get time on the mound and in the field. According to Martin, Attal will play the outfield and come out of the bullpen. Jamieson throws strikes, has a good curve, and was an all-conference pitcher in high school. 

First-years Jack Potash (Weston, Conn.) and Noah Timmer (Keene, N.H.) are tall (6-foot-3) right-handers with good stuff who should be key contributors right away. 

Right-handed pitchers Luke Linnehan (Hingham, Mass.) and Corbin McAlpine (Boxborough, Mass.) are both strike throwers who will also get chances on the mound for Bates as rookies. 

But as Martin emphasizes, "we won't know much until we see these guys on the field in game situations."

The Bobcats are led on offense by senior captain and 2019 All-NESCAC first team selection Christian Beal (Flossmoor, Ill.), who will patrol center field. Beal finished fourth in the NESCAC in hitting in 2019 with a .370 average and scored a team-high 32 runs, while swiping a team-high 15 bases. Beal is committed to play at Division I program University of Richmond in 2022, where Nolan Collins '20 is currently pitching.

"Beal is an elite player in this league and he should play every inning of every game," said Martin.

The rest of the outfield is more wide open but Martin wants to find a way to get the bats of junior Antonio Jareno (Marietta, Ga.) and first-year Noah Jankowski (Methuen, Mass.) in the lineup.

"These two guys can really hit, it's just a matter of finding a spot for them in the field," Martin said. "Jankowski is country strong and can play catcher as well. Also, we've seen what Jareno does at the plate. We need their bats."

Jareno was the first Bates baseball rookie ever to win NESCAC Player of the Week in 2019 when he went 6-13 at the plate with three runs scored, two doubles, a home run, three RBIs and a stolen base as Bates took two of three from Trinity on its way to the most conference wins in program history. He ended up hitting .295/.360/.410 in 2019 and was off to a .294/.400/.382 start last year before the season got canceled. 

Martin expects Attal and first-year Evan Hall (Silver Spring, Md.) to make an impact in the outfield, with sophomore Drew Fallon (Mansfield, Mass.) moving between the outfield and the infield as a valuable utility player for Bates.

Around the infield, the Bobcats have quite a bit of depth. 

Jamieson, who started all nine games last year, hitting a homer, two doubles and one triple along the way, will likely man the hot corner. That being said, Martin has also been impressed with first-year left-handed bat Christopher Cimino (Scarborough, Maine) so far this spring. 

Moving to shortstop, junior Kevin Lucey (Topsfield, Mass.), who was off to a hot start last year (3-7 with a home run), is expected to start, with first-year Jack Brennan (West Hartford, Conn.) pushing him in practice. 

At second base, a pair of senior captains hold down the fort. 

Zach Avila (San Francisco, Calif.) returned to the team in 2020 and was off to a great start (.323/.364/.387) after a strong sophomore year in 2018 when he emerged as the team's starter at the keystone sack, finishing with a slash line of .287/.347/.299.

Fellow senior captain Colin Coyne (Falmouth, Maine) played last summer in the Greater Northeast Collegiate Baseball League and is known for his excellent glove at second (no errors in 60 career chances). 

Martin will get a chance to mix and match at first base, with a trio of Bobcats competing for playing time.

Senior captain Noah Loughlin (Mililani, Hawaii) and junior Bryan Gotti (Westwood, Mass.) are right-handed and left-handed bats respectively with some pop. Gotti homered twice as a first-year and once last season in six starts. Loughlin has been a contributor since day one for Bates and is looking to put it all together in his senior season after a good start to his junior year ended abruptly. Meanwhile, 6-foot-6 sophomore right-handed bat Alex Ross (Ridgefield, Conn.) saw action in six games last year, starting two, and did not make an error in the field.

Replacing All-NESCAC catcher Jack Arend '20 behind the plate will be a team effort. Sophomore John Nowak (Pelham, N.Y.) went 5-22 last year at the plate with a pair of home runs and Jankowski will also see action behind the plate.

"John has a lot of upside, but he needs to get on the field and play, learn how to manage pitchers, stuff you can only do in game situations," Martin said. "This is an issue for most of our sophomores. They haven't had a full baseball season since they were in high school."

Martin says that the team is getting better each day in practice and that he's excited to see improvement taking place over the course of the season. 

"You can practice all you want, but baseball is all about the games," Martin said. "That's where the real development happens."