Jeremy Richey coached the Seymour baseball team to 23 wins last spring, including winning the Hoosier Hills Conference tournament for the first time in school history.

With 10 returning veterans to build around, Richey is hoping the Owls can equal or top that win total and add a sectional title to the list this year.

He said the Owls have experience at nearly every position especially on the mound.

“A lot of these guys that didn’t play the field last year are ready to play,” Richey said. “We had several three-year starters that were in front of them.

“These guys are excited to get out there and play. It looks like our lineup is going to be pretty new, but there are a lot of kids that we’re expecting a lot of things from that just didn’t have to contribute last year because we had so many guys back.”

Junior Braden Richey, Jeremy’s son, shared the outstanding pitching award with Aiden Darlage last year. Richey was 6-0 with 38 strike outs in 29 innings of work with a 1.45 ERA.

On the pre-season roster, Richey, Brady Harpe, Bret Perry, Sam Rockey, Parker Thompson, Mikey Wright, Gavin Leavy, Aaron Holt, Dylan Thompson, Shotaro Takeuchi and Owen Lauster, all have a ‘P’ listed under the position column.

Coach Richey said he feels like that group provides him and pitching coach Elvis Hernandez with not only with quality at the top end “but also the depth that we have on the mound is going to benefit us with Mikey, Gavin and Braden.

“Those three all threw big games for us last year,” he said. “ Then you get Brady, who was able to pitch when he came back from the broken leg last year. We’ve got a lot of guys that haven’t thrown a whole lot, a kid like Jack Pennington.

“Jack is going to get on the mound this year. We’ve worked with him a lot. We’ve really worked hard on most of our guys having the ability to fill some type of role on the mound. Other than our catchers, there aren’t many guys that don’t have the potential to see the mound at some point.”

Will Kratoska and Tylan Nicholson are competing for playing time at catcher.

Richey said, “Right now it’s a battle. That is exactly what we wanted. Both of those guys are going to catch for us this year. We’re just trying to figure out how that is going to play out. We’re fully confident with both of them behind the plate.”

Nicholson attended a high school in the Houston, Texas, area last year, and is coming off a torn ACL.

Leavy is a leading candidate at first base. Last year he received a Gold Glove award for having a fielding percentage of at least .970. Wright also will see playing time at first base.

“Those two will probably flip-flop depending on who is pitching,” Richey said. “Mikey will play the outfield, also.”

The middle infield position will be between Harpe and Perry. “Bret is dealing with a little bit of an arm issue, so it may be more of Bret at second right now, and Brady at short.”

Richey said the coaches need to figure out who will play those infield positions when Harpe and Perry are on the mound. Aaron Holt is a candidate for those positions, but he has played a lot at third base this spring.

Holt is battling Richey for playing time at third base.

Another third base prospect is Mack Longmeier.

“We’re trying to figure out what the move is based on who is on the mound,” Richey said.

Pennington will start in centerfield. Wright, Parker Thompson, Dylan Thompson, Ross Pumphrey, Longmeier, Shotaro Takeuchi and Owen Lauster are candidates for the corner outfield spots.

Perry was the Owls’ offensive player of the year last spring when he topped the team in runs (34), hits (34), walks (22), and stolen bases (20). He also was second in average (.391) and RBIs (19).

Perry was named all-HHC first team and Pennington was HHC honorable mention.

Perry (.630), Richey (.541) and Levy (.507) also received quality at bat awards.

Richey said the new opponents on the schedule this spring are Silver Creek, Providence, Beech Grove and Mitchell.

The Owls will open against defending Class 3A state champion Silver Creek at 6 p.m. Tuesday at American Legion Field.

Richey said, “Regardless of what our record is, we’re going to play baseball at a high level. Defense is what we’ve worked hard on because we know that the pitching is going to be pretty good.

“We’ve got pretty good depth. We’ve got 15 kids on the varsity, and we’ve got a lot of young guys. Our young kids are going to be pretty good. The sophomore group continues to get better, and we have a really talented freshmen group.”