Skyline’s baseball team is hitting their way into a great position for the regular season with a record of 8-6 so far in the pre-season.

The Trojan’s have impressive numbers for their offensive play as of yet.

“I’m really surprised our offense and hitting are as well as they are,” Coach Dino Nomicos said. “We’re doing really good. We’ve had 17 home runs.”

Third baseman Matt Andreli added to the high number of home runs with his grand slam against Feather River to help the team win the game. Andreli, a starting freshmen, hit his grand slam in the eighth inning when the Trojans were down 2-5, but Skyline ended up winning the game 6-5.

A big feat for Skyline was beating defending state champions, Santa Rosa, in addition to all the other difficult games.

“We’ve played some tough teams,” Nomicos said. “We’ve won the last four games in a row. Last week we beat Santa Rosa 16-7; the guys have been working hard.”

The team had three games during Feb. 24-26. Friday’s game was against College of Marin, Saturday’s was against Monterey Peninsula and Sunday’s was against Gavilon. Before the games, Nomicos had realistic dreams of victories.

“I’d like to be 3-0,” Nomicos said. “Realistically I’d like to be 2-1. I want us to finish the pre-season and go into the league at 10-7.”

The team’s first regular season game is in Redwood City against Cañada College on March 2. Nomicos says the Colts are a good team but are struggling right now with a 3-10 record.

The rankings haven’t come out yet, but Nomicos says they should be going out soon so that each team will know their standings.

“At the college level all the teams are good,” Nomicos said. “The difference between a good team and a great team is the pitching. If you pitch well you’re going to win”

The Trojan’s pitching staff has been living up to coach’s expectations. The only thing slowing the pitchers down has been injuries.

“They’ve been throwing well,” Nomicos said. “We’ve lost a lot of games we should have won due to injuries.”

The team has been on the road a lot recently and Nomicos says it is good to be home. The road can really tire a team out, he says.

The team has a few standout players so far this season, including shortstop Brian Lloyd, Andreli and outfielder Frank Kurnik.

The team is evenly divided between freshmen and sophomores this year and it has been a good thing according to Nomicos. There are nine starters, 5 of them are freshman.

“They have really good chemistry,” Nomicos said. “The sophomores have helped out the freshmen a lot.”

Skyline and CSM’s long rivalry will be put to the test in the championships if Nomicos’ predictions are right.

“It will be between us and CSM,” Nomicos said of the championship game. “We’ve been progressing real well. We’ve got a good group of kids, they believe they can win.”