With ten nonconference games under their belts, the Roseburg High School baseball team has seen a mixture of success and struggle leading into the start of Southwest Conference play on Saturday.

“I thought we had a very good nonconferecne schedule. We played some very quality teams and competed well against them,” said Roseburg coach Troy Thompson, who is in his 20th season with the Indians and was named the Southern Oregon Conference and NFHS Oregon and Section 8 coach of the year last season.

This year, Thompson and his crew started the season with some late-game dramatics. Roseburg (6-4) had walk-off victories over Sprague and Ida B. Wells.

The Tribe was then hit with a hard dose of reality when they were held hitless in the first game of their annual spring break trip against Bend.

“There’s definitely been some rough patches, but we’ve been working out the kinks and just finding our roles. I think we’re really starting to play as a team,” said senior Dominic Tatone.

Expectations are high this season for Roseburg. The team has a large number of players returning from last year’s squad that claimed a Southern Oregon Conference tournament championship and went 14-4 overall.

Tatone thinks winning the tournament title has given the club confidence going into conference play this year.

“It does bring a little bit of confidence, but it’s still baseball. We still have to play the game. There’s still good teams in our conference. They’re not just going to hand it to us because we won it last year. So we’re definitely going to have to work for it just as hard as we did to get it last year,” said Tatone, who is one of seven returning all-conference selections.

Roseburg’s pitching and defense has shouldered much of the load early on. The Indians have a solid 1-2 punch on the mound with Tatone, a first team pitcher, and reigning Southern Oregon Conference pitcher of the year Evan Corbin.

Junior Austin Takahashi, a second team all-conference selection in the infield, has cemented himself as Roseburg’s third starter and the trio have combined for 48 strikeouts and just 24 walks in 52 innings of work.

“I feel like when they’re all on, we can do some damage,” said senior Knox Hubbard, an all-conference second team selection at catcher last year. Hubbard, a second year starter behind the plate, says he’s seen a lot more confidence in Roseburg’s pitching staff this year and he thinks that will help lead the team to success.

While Roseburg’s pitching has done well (team earned run average of 2.85), clutch hitting has been a concern. Thompson said hitting with runners on base is a constant point of emphasis for the coaching staff.

“Offensively, we do a good job of getting on base and we continue to work on driving those runs in when they get on base,” said Thompson.

Takahashi (.313) and Logan Klopfenstein (.303) are leading Roseburg’s everyday hitters, while Nathan Wayman (.368), Tatone (.364) and Silas Kincade (.316) have provided a lift when in the lineup.

Southwest Conference play begins on Saturday for the entire conference. Sheldon and South Eugene rejoin the league this season after facing mainly Eugene/Springfield area teams a year ago.

Roseburg played in a hybrid conference of just Southern Oregon schools last year during a COVID-shortened season.

With the conference whole again, Thompson thinks North and South Medford will be top challengers for the conference title, but there’s a lot of mystery surrounding everyone.

“Once again I think our league will be very tough. You look at the nonleague results from what teams in our league have been doing and they’ve had success and that leads into another very tough league schedule,” Thompson explained.

Saturday’s opening day for the SWC features doubleheader matchups with North Medford at Roseburg, South Medford hosts Sheldon and Grants Pass visits South Eugene.

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