There is still snow on the ground, but the Blue Devil baseball team is headed south to get a start on the season.

Riverland Community College is coming off a season that went 32-10 overall, but lost in the Region 13 championship on a walk-off homer against Century. The Blue Devils bring back some key players from that team and they’re coming off a fall stretch that saw them compete with some of the best teams in the nation.

However, RCC will have to make some changes from that fall time as five of the projected starters are no longer on the team.

“We’ve had a crazy fall and I’ve never seen in anything like it,” RCC head coach Scott Koenigs said. “We’ve lost five starters from what we had in the fall. That’s going to hurt us. We lost a lot, but we have a lot of talent here and we have a lot of guys that I think will step up.”

While the player losses hurt, Koenigs is still expecting the Blue Devils to be a force. RCC has been ranked in the top-10 in NJCAA Division III in each of the last eight years and it returns and All-American second baseman in Mason Ruhlman, who is ready to get out and play.

“We lost in the Regions last year and that’s definitely motivating us. We want to win conference first and then go after the World Series,” Ruhlman said. “It’s tough [during the winter] because we hit inside and then we have to go play against touch competition to see where we stand. It’s huge for us to get out there and play the game.”

RCC also returns a big bat in first baseman Josh Molina. Other key returnees are Jackson McNellis, who will pitch and play third base and Austin grad Alex Ciola, an outfielder who played six positions last year.

Ciola has bulked up through the weight training program and should have more pop in his bat this spring.

“Our main goal is to win the world series and nothing shorter than that. We’ve got some returning guys and some good pitchers. We’ve just got to keep our heads straight and stay focused,” Ciola said. “We’re really looking forward to get outside and start getting some real at bats. It gets boring practicing inside for so long.”

McNellis is also fired up to get down south and start playing baseball.

“We have a good lineup this year,” he said. “We’ve had some new guys come in and I think it will be good to get some game in together.”

The Blue Devils will open their season against Bismarck State in Tuscon, Ariz. Saturday. The Blue Devils will play seven games on their Arizona trip and they are scheduled to host Gustavus March 25.

Koenigs is hoping the trip down south will be a jump-start to a solid season for the Blue Devils.

“Talent wise I think we’re going to be pretty strong, even without the guys that left,” Koenigs said. “We may just have to little harder.”