The East Haven softball team is dealing with a few changes as it heads into the 2017 season. For one, the Yellowjackets graduated their fair share of starters from last year’s squad. Aside from that, East Haven is no longer in the Oronoque Division that it had won in six of the seven years. In the realigned SCC, the Easties are now playing in the Quinnipiac Division with West Haven, Branford, and Hillhouse.

“[North Haven] was our biggest rival, so it’s going to be weird not playing them,” said Head Coach Ed Crisafi on switching divisions. “That’s the biggest thing. We’ll be missing them. We also don’t play Career or Cross now.”

Coach Crisafi expects his athletes’ versatility to be one of the Yellowjacketts’ biggest assets this season. The lone senior on this year’s team is Fallon Speers, who’s one of five captains and will be joined in that role by juniors Julia SanGiovanni, Jessica Stettinger, Selena Mauro, and Brianna Carrano. Mauro and sophomore Taylor Myers are East Haven’s primary pitchers. In terms of the Yellowjackets’ other projected starters, they’ll have Stettinger behind the plate, Cerrano at first, Speers at second, SanGiovanni at shortstop, and sophomore Diana Kalman at third. In the outfield, freshman Tatum Punzo is expected to play left, with sophomore Megan Roberts in center, and junior Jessica Shultis in right. East Haven’s designated players are slated to be sophomore Mariah DeCarlo and junior Jaime Gallo. Sophomore Jenna Esposito is vying for playing time in the infield, while freshman Becca Flynn and sophomore Stephanie Redding will be pushing for innings in the outfield.

“A lot of them can play different positions. It’s not like last year where everyone had a set position. We’re really young, so the more experience they get, as the season goes on, I think we’ll get better,” said Crisafi, whose team went 15-7 last year. “Right now, through three scrimmages, we do pound the ball, but defensively is where we’re lacking a little bit. Once we button that down, I think we’ll be fine.”

East Haven looks to be in good shape with Mauro and Myers manning the pitcher’s mound this year. While the duo has big shoes to fill with replacing Laura Anderson and Kara Hanson, Crisafi trusts that they have the stuff to get the job done on the bump.

“Both pitchers throw strikes, throw hard, and throw changeups,” he said. “Selena pitched five of our first seven games as a freshman, but when Laura and Kara were dominating last year, she was the odd person out. I have no worries about her ,and Taylor pitched against Cross and Career last year and in summer, so she’ll be fine ,too. Pitching won’t be a problem.”

Unfortunately, Crisafi and the Yellowjackets have been dealing with some suspect weather to start the year. Of course, everyone is on a level playing field in that regard, but Crisafi noted that the Yellowjackets were only able to play three of their nine scheduled scrimmages during the preseason—not an ideal scenario for such a young club.

“We’re inexperienced. We only have three players back that started last year, so the others are going to have to be trial by fire. We have a whole new outfield and we’ve done some juggling where girls are playing some new positions in the infield,” said Crisafi. “We’re not in a rebuilding mode. I think we’re in a reloading mode and we’ll be OK. We’re going to take our bumps and bruises along the way, but from what I saw in our three scrimmages, if we can buckle down defensively, I know we’re going to hit.”

East Haven plays four games in four days to open the year this week, and Coach Crisafi knows the early stretch will show him some signs about how his team will handle the rigors of the season. The Yellowjackets have two games against non-conference squad Stamford during the first week, along with matchups versus SCC foes Foran and Amity.

“We are playing four in a row to start the season, weather permitting. It will put us in a tough situation right off the bat. If we can get them all in, we’ll find out early how we’re going to look,” he said. “We’ll see what happens. We have to keep this new tradition of winning going.”