NISH’s baseball seniors for 2022, from left, are Luke Landry, Christian Thomas, Derron Degeyter, Quinton Jackson, Evan Hebert and Zachary Charles.

While some teams would look to rebuild their program following a playoff quarterfinal run and the loss of six seniors, the New Iberia Senior High baseball team is planning on continuing where the Yellow Jackets left off in 2021.

“I think we could build on the success from last year,” head coach Eli Lewellyn said. “We actually have more seniors this year than last year. With this group, it’s a lot of guys who haven’t really gotten a lot of varsity game experience, so the real thing that will determine our success or failure this year is whether or not guys will step up, fill the shoes of players who left last year, and just be playmakers like they should be as seniors.”

Lewellyn said the schedule this year will test his team early, with multiple tournaments that will expose NISH to good levels of competition.

“We have a balanced schedule this season,” he said. “We typically mix in some tough tournaments. We have a tough tournament in week 1 with North Vermilion and Notre Dame. We also have a relatively solid week 3 tournament as well, so we have a good mixture of tough opponents at the beginning of the year and some opponents that I think we match up well against.”

Lewellyn is entering his eighth year of coaching at NISH, and is adding a new face to complement his coaching staff for 2022.

“We added Peter Derouen to our staff and I’m returning Blayze Romero and Blaine Arceneaux, so we have a good group of guys,” Lewellyn said. “The process doesn’t work without the help that they give. It’s a team effort and I think that all of us work well together.”

Lewellyn said the success this season won’t be measured in terms of a specific point to reach in the playoffs, but rather a constant state of improvement.

“For me, our goal is to build on what we did last year,” he said. “It’s not really about getting to a certain spot in the playoffs, what I really want to do is see us improve, get a little better each day, and really be a champion in the process.”

NISH leaned hard on the six seniors last season to provide success for the team, but Lewellyn said it isn’t just about the senior class this year.

“I think we could have some young guys step up, particularly in the pitching staff,” Lewellyn said. “There’s a couple of sophomores and juniors that come to mind that I think will be really big for us as pitchers. We are going to have to depend on some seniors that didn’t get a lot of varsity time last season but have enough experience being around us and how we do things that they will need to step up and be big this year for us.”

Lewellyn added that his philosophy for the team is to be “hardnosed” and to play tough, stating that his team is going to be prepared for anything the season can throw their way.

“That’s who we are,” he said. “We’re going to be a team that is prepared and is going to work hard and we’re going to be ready to play.”

NISH will begin the season Monday with scrimmages against North Vermillion and Opelousas Catholic. Games will be held at St. Julien Park in Broussard. Lewellyn said fans can follow the team on Facebook for more schedule information.