WESTBROOK – After an impressive 14-2 regular season in 2011, the Westbrook Blue Blazes baseball team returns this spring with a completely revamped roster.

After graduating 11 seniors, including Gatorade Player of the Year Scott Heath, the Blazes will be forced to rely on players with relatively little experience as the team competes for a chance to get back to the SMAA playoffs.

Along with the new look roster, the Blazes will also be under new leadership, as coach Greg Souza gets set to begin his first year.

Prior to this season, Souza coached Westbrook’s American Legion team for the past three summers and served as assistant coach and bullpen coach for St. Joe’s last season. Souza has also served as a Westbrook assistant coach.

Despite the large turnover, Souza remains confident that his team has what it takes to make another run to the postseason.

“We graduated 11 seniors but there are a lot of kids here that would have played varsity for another team last year,” he said. “So there’s a lot of talent here at the varsity level. We just have to see if they’re ready to step up.”

One of those players looking to step up is senior Andrew McCarthy.

“There’s definitely nothing better than getting on the field for the first time of the year,” said McCarthy. “We’re on the diamond now, so it’s go time, time to grab a title.”

That will be a tough task for the returning players for the Blazes.

Last season, the Blazes opened up with 12 consecutive wins, including eight shutouts.

Along with stellar pitching from Heath and Sean Murphy, the Blaze bats helped the team outscore opponents 118-22 during the regular season. The team’s only two losses came against powerhouses Scarborough and Cheverus.

This year, the team probably will not be as dominating, as the Blazes will look to play small ball.

“We got some new faces this year, our team is totally different,” said Joe Quinlan, who hit .289 last season while starting all 16 games. “We don’t have those one or two guys we can depend on to win games just by throwing a one hitter day in and day out. So this year it’s more of a team effort. Everybody is stepping up so far and doing their job.”

With the unseasonably warm weather to start the spring, the Blazes have had the luxury of getting out onto the field early and out of the gym in preparation for the season.

“It’s good to be out this early because eventually we’ll be playing in some cold weather this year,” said senior Joe Dvilinsky. “Being outside early will definitely get us adapted to that.”

With 11 players gone from last year’s 14-2 team, the Blazes will have to come together as a team in order to make it back to the postseason. Here, the Blazes stretch as team prior to practice last week at Westbrook High School.