Piedmont High School’s baseball team is on the hunt for another great season, with multiple returning seniors, and the biggest group of newcomers since the pre-COVID days.
The Highlanders have enjoyed success, going 16-10 last season and 19-10 the year before. Coach Eric Olson said he plans to keep it going.
“(We’ve had) lots of turnover,” Olson said. “We’ve had some really strong baseball players come through the system. Markos Lagios, Will Parker, both college players, (along with) Jordan Vo, Shafer Dando, Brandon Dicke, William Ferreira.”
Olson said this year’s team has a strong group of senior leaders.
“We still have some four-year seniors, like Diego Delvanthal, Jack Meyjes, Enzo Ong, George Bishop, and Mike Martin, who came to us last year via transfer,” Olson said.
Pitching will be a key.
“We have a lot of kids I’m really excited to get on the mound,” Olson said. “[Bishop and Meyjes] are two seniors that are going to pitch a lot for us. Massimo Mittone was great last year, [Delventhal] is going to close a little bit for us, and Thomas Moision is going to pitch a lot more. Pitching and defense is going to be what we hang our hat on this year.”
The West Alameda County Conference Foothill Division will be very competitive with Castro Valley, Encinal, Alameda, and Berkeley.
“This might be the best year of the league that we’ve been in. We’re in a really tough league with five other really quality teams,” Olson said. “I think all five teams can really be top notch teams, and they’ll all have winning records.”
Despite the competition, Olson said he predicts success.
“I just want to compete,” Olson said. “I want to be in every game, I want to be scrappy, and try and be in there, and make it a seven inning ball game. I think our pitching and defense is going to keep us right there. (I expect) that we just get better every week.”
With an influx of younger players, more underclassmen such as Max Fujimoto, Jonah Cha-Foster, and Lucas Delventhal will be stepping up to play big roles on varsity. Olson said that the team has a powerful group of batters, including both Delvanthals, Cha-Foster, Meyjes, Martin, and more.
“I’m looking forward to watching every day, and I think we’ll be competitive at bat and hopefully score some runs,” Olson said.
The team has been training in the offseason since September, doing weightroom sessions, batting cages, and bullpens multiple times a week.
Olson said the scrimmage on Feb. 25 against Arroyo High School was a good way to set the tone for the season.
“It was about getting guys opportunities, getting playing time, having some adversity,” Olson said. “They had some great plays. [Arroyo] had some great hits so we could work on what we needed to do in terms of defense.”
The program is having a large amount of new players come in. Olson said he is very excited to work with the younger players.
“There’s a big group of freshmen that are coming into the program that we haven’t had in a number of years, whether it be because of COVID,” Olson said. “We’re really excited about the young kids.”
The Highlanders next game is against Skyline on Feb. 27.