This year’s Nansemond-Suffolk Academy softball team has a tough act to follow after the 2012 squad won the Tidewater Conference of Independent Schools tournament championship and reached the state title game.

Head coach Kim Aston returns for her eighth season coaching the Lady Saints, but the team will miss the six seniors who graduated last year, including pitcher Morgan Daughtry, who was first-team all-state, first team all-conference and the TCIS Tournament’s Most Valuable Player.

Daughtry led a talent group that went 21-2 overall and 6-1 in the conference. It faced an undefeated Greenbrier Christian Academy team in the TCIS tournament championship and won 1-0. Up until that point, the Lady Gators had won the title nine years in a row.

As big an accomplishment as that was, Aston sees the potential for the 2013 team to craft a similar story. Whether it will or not depends in large part upon the health of senior pitcher Devin Coyne, who would have been sharing the load on the mound with Daughtry last season, but was sidelined for most of the year due to a back injury.

“Well, I think if we can keep Devin healthy, I think that we have a good shot at being, basically, in the same position we were in last year in the TCIS,” Aston said. “Greenbrier’s obviously the team to beat. They have an outstanding pitcher. We played extremely well to win that game last year against them. Everything seemed to come together at the right time. The same thing could take place this year; it’s just that we have a much younger team. “

Having a younger team means returning players will have to be flexible and adapt to other positions that require their experience. Aston cannot afford to move some, however, like first team all-state and all-conference junior catcher Macy Mears.

“We really would like Macy to play shortstop, but as of now, we’re going to have to keep her behind the plate,” Aston said. “She’s a great infielder, but we’ve had to put her at the catcher position, because we didn’t really have anyone else. We do have an eighth grader this year who caught for the (junior varsity) team last year and is pretty good, but she’s young, so we’ll have to see how that goes.”

“Brooklyn Carr last year made second team all-conference as an eighth grader and she played first base, so I predict she’ll have to change to positions this year, probably go to third base or possibly even shortstop some,” Aston said.

Other shortstop contenders include eighth grader Logan Harrell, who is new to the school this year, and last year’s JV shortstop Nicole Wright.

Senior Katelyn McCracken, who made the All-TCIS second team last year, will likely get to stay put in centerfield.

“That’s the most important outfield position, and she does a nice job out there, and with two young kids on each side of her, we just plan on trying to keep her there,” Aston said.

The most difficult thing for Nansemond-Suffolk this year will likely be putting runners on base, Aston said.

“We basically have four kids that were varsity players that we have a lot of confidence in at the plate, and then we’re going to have five newcomers in the lineup that it’s kind of a wait-and-see what happens (situation),” she said.

Those four returning varsity players will be led by Mears, who had a batting average of .549 last season. Carr is a power hitter and led the team in runs batted in last year with 33. McCracken and Coyne will round out the corps of veteran batters.

Aston’s history with the group of seniors that graduated last year tells her this year could be a success.

“I think (of) the youth that we have, we have some solid players, and five years ago, I had all of the seniors that graduated (when they) were ninth graders, and we were young, and we were good.”

The Lady Saints’ regular season commences tomorrow at home against Windsor High School.