It’s a time for youth and optimism, but also patience for the Cattaraugus-Little Valley softball team.

Fifth-year coach Heather Smith brings back two starters, seniors Katie Jones and Lia Johnson, but welcomes a slew of freshmen and sophomores with little or no varsity experience. They’ll be tasked with filling most or all of the starting infield positions for a team that went 5-15 last spring.

“I’m really returning two,” Smith said of starters. “That’s the varsity experience we have with my centerfielder and my backup pitcher/left fielder coming back. The other one’s my first baseman and we just started training her at first base last year so she doesn’t have that much experience. The other girls that are new, the younger girls, they’ve played some, they’ve been to states for Little League All-Stars, so they’ve participated in some pretty tough games, but for varsity-level experience that’s it.”

Jones, the centerfielder, and Johnson, the left fielder, both bring a unique quality to leading the young team.

“They get the girls motivated to want to focus,” Smith said. “Lia’s a great leader in the practice aspect where she wants them to understand that if they lose focus, they’re not going to do as well as they can, where Katie makes them all feel welcome. They’re freshmen and she makes them feel like they’re part of the team all the time.”

Fellow seniors include Kayla Cannon (RF), Taylor Stockman (1B), Kaitlyn Parmenter (DH), Yukina Aokai (RF), Brenda Jair-Nara (OF) and Laura Petroli (OF). Savannah Damon (2B/LF) is the lone junior. Lauren Eaton (2B/3B), Brooklynn Hill (C), Bridget Murphy (2B) and Mackenzie Ryan (CF) comprise the sophomores. Emily Horth (3B), Lexi Wulf (SS) and Emma Rupp (P) join the team as freshmen.

C-LV started 1-1, beating Randolph 11-10 in Randolph before falling, 4-3, to Myrtle Beach (S.C.) on the T-Wolves’ annual southern trip. For the fourth consecutive year, the T-Wolves raised funds to stay in Myrtle Beach over spring break to gain experience and bonding, but this time kept the trip to mostly scrimmages.

“You can never depend on the weather up here,” Smith said. “For spring break, you can never schedule too many games especially softball because there’s so many teams from around here that go down.

“You can’t really schedule games and I feel like we get way more effective practice in a scrimmage format against another team than what we would up here just practicing by ourselves all the time. We practice our JV and varsity teams together for an entire month and they don’t get to see the game situations. So that’s one of the big helpers and this year actually was the best year for team bonding. I feel like they get a lot closer to each other.”

For Smith, 38-40 for her career including a 2014 Section 6 Class C title entering this season, said she’s already seen “tremendous” defensive improvement from the opener at Randolph through the last Myrtle Beach scrimmage.

“We had probably six errors against Randolph and pitching was a struggle that day too,” she said. “It was their first game out, and pitching was amazing last week in Myrtle Beach and so was their defense. They picked up some pretty good plays for being such and inexperienced team, like my entire infield is basically freshmen and sophomores.”

Rather than set a win-loss goal, Smith and assistant coach Tim Ulinger will track improvement and how the girls play together. They’re also stressing a short memory on their mistakes.

“They understand that they’re young, Smith said, “and I tell them all the time, ‘You are young and you’re going to make mistakes, we’re expecting mistakes, but you have to minimize the ones that you can control.’

“We stress the fact that we understand that they’re not going to be perfect especially with their little experience but we want them to be able to bounce back as quick as possible too.”

The 2017 Cattaraugus-Little Valley varsity softball schedule:

(All games 4:30 p.m., unless otherwise indicated)

April

3 — at Randolph (W, 11-10)

4 — Salamanca, ppd.

6 — Archbishop Walsh, ppd.

12 — at Myrtle Beach (L, 4-3)

18 —North Collins

19 — at Archbishop Walsh

21 — Randolph

24 — Frewsburg

26 — at Pine Valley

28 — Franklinville

May

1 — at Ellicottville

2 — at North Collins

4 — at Salamanca

5 — at Frewsburg

8 — Pine Valley

10 — at Franklinville

12 — Ellicottville