Trying to plot Catasauqua’s baseball season, one may see plenty of peaks and valleys this year.

With a young club, the Rough Riders will battle for consistency. Streaks of consistent play can turn a mediocre at best campaign into a district-bound season.

With two impressive victories over Notre Dame and Northwestern, Catty recently took its 2-2 mark to Slatington to try and climb over the .500 mark with a victory over the Bulldogs.

Unfortunately, their inexperience showed in a 13-10 loss to Northern Lehigh - a game in which the Roughies jumped out to a 2-0 lead before the host Bulldogs rallied for eight runs in the bottom of the inning.

Catty battled back, but it never recovered. They managed to close to within 8-7.

“We spotted them eight runs in the first inning,” said head coach Steve Bradley. “We had a young pitcher starting, and he had trouble with his control early. There were a couple of errors, three walks, a balk, a home run, and a double.

“We were the direct opposite of the day before. You should win a game when you score 10 runs.”

Bradley continues to see plenty of positives from freshman starter Reece Lopez. He walked three and struck out six against Northern Lehigh.

“He had a rough start, but he settled down,” added Bradley. “He’s good and he’s tough. That’s a lot to put on a freshman sometimes. He has to figure it out, and we have to help him figure it out. Reece knows the game well.”

Bradley is optimistic the bottom of his lineup can be more productive. He lauded the contributions of Christian Fye, John Pushkar, Hunter Reitz, Matt Fotta, McKay Lewis in the top five spots in the order.

“Those guys have been hitting,” he beamed. “We need some more production from the bottom of the lineup.

“The kids are starting to play together. We’re trying to figure out our pitching right now. We don’t have a number one guy like we did last year. When John Pushkar isn’t pitching, he’s either catching or playing third base. That can be a lot on his arm.

“It would be nice to take two out of three games this week. Obviously, we want to win all three. We just have to be consistent and can’t let games get away from us.”