MARYSVILLE — The Chargers baseball team lost to the Oak Harbor Wildcats, 6-0, in a home game on Wednesday, April 3.

“We lost this game 6-0,” said head coach Gerry Klep. “I think we played with a lack of energy today and they were pitching two strikes, they took to the opportunity to score and they took advantage of situations that we left them.”

The Chargers returned 11 varsity players, including four seniors, after being a first-year team in 2012.

“We are absolutely building from the ground up,” said Klep. “Most of the programs in the area are full of select players, and we only had two in the program last year, and a lot weren’t playing summer baseball. This year we had a lot of them playing over the summer to help us be more prepared. We’ve been through growing pains, taking our lumps. Of all the sports to be playing at a high school level, baseball is probably the toughest sport to come in with players who are not experienced.”

As of press time, the Chargers held a 3-5 record overall and a 2-3 record in their conference.

“We have two more wins than all of last year,” said Klep. “I can tell you that we are prepared and the kids are understanding the system that we are running. As coaches our expectations are higher, since we didn’t have any expectations going into last year. This season we did set expectations, so we lost some games that we felt we should have won. They still need to learn how to win, and work on learning how to come from behind in baseball. We should have won at least one of the other games against Stanwood. We had the best pitcher on the mound today. We felt we should have won. We are continually talking about seizing the moment. We had the opportunity to win a series, but we haven’t as a group seized that opportunity.”

Right now, the Chargers have six players on their pitching staff, including junior Rylan Faucett, junior Aaron Christensen, junior Jake Lund, senior Brandon Bethers, senior Zach Weiderstrom and senior Carlos Gonzalez.

“Being a semi-young club, we do have good leadership this year with Bethers,” said Klep. “He’s been a rock for the last two years. He puts a lot on his shoulders. Rylan Faucett, our submarine pitcher, has been stepping up — three of our four wins are his pitching. We have John Clark, a sophomore, who is a 6-foot-5, 220-pound right-fielder for us. He was in the line as a freshman and will be in the lineup for the next two years. I expect he will be an all-league player this year.”

Right now the Chargers are focused on building up their program and making sure that they solidify their game.

“I expect us in the next couple of years to be the program that kids will want to play on, and will want to emulate what we’ve done,” said Klep. “Our goal is to make the district playoffs. They will take three teams out of the five team division, and I think we are good enough to make the district.”

Marysville Getchell plays Shorecrest at home at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, April 10.