Atwater Easter Baseball tournament on deck

With a young group of players, the Atwater High School baseball team has taken its lumps early on this season.

The Falcons (1-6) started the season with six consecutive losses before breaking through with a 5-1 win against East Union on Wednesday. Atwater hopes it can gain some momentum next week during its own tournament before Central California Conference play begins on April 5.

“With the team we have, it works out having the schedule we’ve got,” said Atwater coach Jarrod Pimentel. “Obviously, after losing 12 seniors from last year’s team, we have a lot of learning to do. Hopefully playing all these nonconference games and our tournament coming up will benefit us.”

The 57th annual Fran Oneto/Atwater-Winton Lions Easter Baseball Tournament gets underway on Monday.

The eight-team tournament is a mix of returning and new teams to the field this season.

“We have a team from Reno back in Douglas,” Pimentel said. “The last time they were in the tournament, (former coach) Costa Aguilar was coaching at Atwater. Douglas played Oakdale for the championship that year. They were in the tournament for a long time. They have a new coach (Marc Walling), who played in the tournament when he played in high school.”

Also returning is Livingston, San Leandro, St. Joseph and Redwood Christian, which won the championship last year.

The new tournament entries include Mountain House, which is fielding a varsity team for the first time, and Jerry Manuel.

Pool A will consist of Atwater, Livingston, San Leandro and Mountain House. Pool B will be comprised of Jerry Manuel, Redwood Christian, St. Joseph and Douglas.

The tournament begins at 10 a.m. with San Leandro playing Mountain House. At 1 p.m., Jerry Manuel will play Redwood Christian. Douglas faces St. Joseph at 4 p.m. and Atwater plays Livingston at 7 p.m.

“It’s always exciting playing Livingston,” Pimentel said. “Matt (Winton) runs a great program. They beat us in the Sweet Potato Joe game a couple weeks ago. They have a strong team this year. We’re excited to play them and keep the tradition rolling.”

The first three days of the tournament is pool play with the championship game scheduled for 7 p.m. on Thursday.

This story was originally published March 25, 2016 at 3:50 PM with the headline "Atwater Easter Baseball tournament on deck."