Progress, in Catasauqua’s case, can be measured over a year’s span as a week.

A year ago, the Rough Riders’ Lehigh Valley Connie Mack entry began the year with an 0-6 mark. This season, the Roughies posted a 3-3-1 mark through their first seven games.

Catty head coach Dan Lopez has seen plenty of reasons to keep a stream of optimism flowing about his team. Last week, the Roughies fell to Southern Lehigh, 13-0; walloped the Wolfpack, 15-2, and lost a hard-fought 6-5 decision to Moore Township that brought them to 3-3.

“So far, they have been playing pretty well,” offered Lopez. “We were holding our own against a very good Southern Lehigh team that is in first place and won the championship last year. We fell apart against them.

“We 10-runned the Wolfpack, and that was good. We then lost to a very good Moore Township team on a close play at the plate.”

Looking at their record, Lopez believes his club may have shortchanged themselves.

“We know that we have some things to work on,” he stressed. “But we’re not where we want to be. We felt like we could have pulled some more games out.

“We got a good group of freshman, some JV players and some varsity players. We are much improved from last year.”

On the mound, Alex Bolmer has a 1-0 record with a 3.00 ERA and 16 strikeouts in 21 innings. He has been the staff workhorse.

“Alex has done a good job, and he has had solid outings,” noted Lopez. “We know we’ll need some more pitching when we start playing two or more games per week. We’re planning on adding Gavin Hacker and Cody Roth to the staff.”

The Roughies are hitting a solid .290 as a team, being paced by Luis Collazo at .368. Joe Conway is hitting .335, Steel Martell is a .333, and Evan Reed is at .308. Reed leads the team with six RBIs, and Hacker and Roth each have five.

Lopez has been impressed with the overall effort.

“Roth and Conway are eighth graders who jumped right in,” he said. “Conway has been handling first base, and Roth can play the middle infield and left field.”

Yet, Lopez knows there is still work to be done. The Roughies lone game this week is at perennial power Freemansburg Friday before they embark on a busy schedule the final three weeks.

“Our Achilles heel has been walks,” said Lopez. “We also have to clean up some baserunning mistakes, which we planned to do this week. Also, we have been leaving too many men on base. We need the one big hit and some extra-base hits.

“But we have been good at executing a number of things, and we have a good chemistry here.”