The Class 3A No. 3 Bishop Chatard High School baseball team (25-3) had a painful loss to No. 7 Brebeuf Jesuit in the sectional semifinals.

It marked the end for seven seniors who contributed to the varsity since they were freshmen, and coach Mike Harmon told them not to forget all they accomplished.

"They had a little initiation by fire, but they won 19 games and the program's first sectional championship in a decade last year and 25 games this year," he said. "I told them, 'Keep in mind the things you've done. The taste (of losing to Brebeuf) is going to stay in your mouth for a while and be all you think about, but you've had good careers.'

"Before this year, I said we were good enough to win the 3A championship and that there were teams in this sectional good enough that we might not get out of it. Unfortunately, I was prophetic on that."

The seniors included record-setting first baseman John Dury, catcher Scott Mourey, pitcher Michael Zimmerman, pitcher/second baseman Bobby White and pitcher/outfielder Robbie Doyle.

Bishop Chatard returns starters Bobby Akin (shortstop/pitcher), T.J. Agnew (center field), Shawn Nickleton (left field) and Steve Maniago (third base), who probably will move to second base. Akin is the only experienced pitcher, and the team will have to adapt to having less power.

"It'll be a different look," Harmon said. "We'll be effective but different. We'll have to use more speed, and we'll have a similar pitching by committee approach with nine or 10 guys getting varsity innings.

We've had a lot of guys waiting for an opportunity to play behind that senior class, and they'll get their chance.

"Hopefully, the underclassmen learned some lessons (from how this season ended). We talked all year about playing hard for 21 outs, and it was a tough lesson to learn to not do it (against Brebeuf)."