With opening night just 12 days away, ADM baseball is wrapping up its second full week of official practice.  As has been the case in previous years, the team has in the early going focused on pitching and defense, which head coach Jason Book called the Tigers’ “foundations.”

Weather and field conditions have forced quite a few of ADM’s practices indoors, in which case the Tigers set up as many hitting stations in the North Gym as possible.

An early look at ADM’s roster suggests hitting is where the Tigers, who went 19-14 last season, must show the most improvement.

The Tigers lost their top three hitters, Grant Goeden, Logan Essy and Robby Sloss, to graduation. The trio combined to hit .368 (105-285) and had the team’s top three on-base percentages and slugging percentages, Goeden leading the way with an absurd .706 slugging percentage. Goeden lead the team in extra-base hits, including team-highs in triples (8) and home runs (3), to go along with 7 doubles.

As head coach Jason Book put it, replacing that kind of production doesn’t fall on any particular group of players.

“Well, it won’t be just three guys that step in and replace that. It will have to be a collection of guys,” Book said. “Those three that we lost were really good and played at that level for a few years. So it’s going to take a total team effort to replace that, and we’re capable of it. We’ve got a few guys that just have to buy in to the approach and the system that we want to use a little bit more.  We’ll just have to mix and match pieces and find want’s going to work best.”

The Tigers open the regular season at home 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 26 against Des Moines-Roosevelt, a game that can be heard live on K107 and raccoonvalleyradio.com.