WOODBURY —  After losing eight starters from the 2023 state championship team, many didn’t expect the 2024 Nonnewaug baseball season to go too well. But after working together and progressing through the season, the Chiefs worked their way to a third-place finish in the Berkshire League and a trip to the second round of the Class M state tournament.

Assistant coach Kyle Brennan thinks the team had a successful season and his players learned a lot about what it takes to be winners.

“I think our group learned a lot this year with the handling the pressure of being varsity baseball players, and I think a lot of them learned valuable lessons and how they need to improve if they want to get back to winning championships,” Brennan said. “But overall, it was a successful season considering how much we lost from the year before.”

Junior Trevor Santopietro thinks the team worked well together to get as far as they did, even though they didn’t come out on top.

“We fell short in the Berkshire League but overall we played pretty well,” Santopietro said. “We figured out how to win as a team and we figured out how to build more team chemistry.”

Senior Lucas Savarese agreed well even though they had a rocky start, losing their first three games before eventually finishing with a 14-8 record.

“It was a pretty good season,” said Savarese. “Everybody kind of, at first, was all jumbled and disorganized and then we all started to get a feel for each other, and the season progressed and we got better and better.”