ALTOONA – Altoona senior starters Jordan Dewitz, Brodie Johnson and Jaramy Poirier know all about paying their dues on the baseball diamond through their first three years on the team.

Having won four games their freshman year, six as sophomores and eight as juniors, the Railroaders are finally seeing the fruits of their labors with a 7-0 start and a spot as the No. 5 ranked team in the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association Division 2 poll.

“With one more year under their belts, the guys are back one year older, bigger, faster and stronger,” Altoona coach Jay Johnson said. “The winning attitude out of the gate has snowballed and really has these guys coming into practice every day and working hard on getting better every day.”

That hard work started right after the basketball and hockey seasons ended with the kids taking time in the batting cages during open gyms.

Add to that the weight program the team started during practice time at the start of the season and everything seems to be adding up.

“The guys are coming in and working hard,” Johnson said. “With the help of one of the phy ed teachers we’ve developed a bigger, faster, stronger weight program for the guys and they have really taken to it.”

That fact of losing eight games by one run has certainly stuck with Johnson and he reminds the players of it.

Even in victories where the Railroaders don’t play up to standards, they have been taking lessons and working to improve.

“We talk about momentum,” Johnson said. “We know that when we start playing those better teams come playoff time those mistakes are going to come back and hurt us. Sure we’re 7-0, but we still see room to improve.”

The three senior starters – Dewitz, Johnson and Poirier – have taken on the role of leadership during that process.

“Those guys really push those underclassmen and guys have started to step up,” Johnson said.

The place where that seems to show up the most is on offense where Altoona has outscored opponents 73-18 in their seven wins.

Junior catcher Joel Johnson leads the team with a .529 batting average with Dewitz adding a .435 average at the plate and seven RBI. A surprise thus far has been junior Andrew Wilcox who is hiting .500 with four doubles and five RBI.

The pitching has also been solid behind Dewitz who has allowed just five ER in 21 innings utilizing his fastball, changeup and slider.

“Most times guys don’t know what’s coming next,” said Johnson of Dewitz’s ability to keep hitters guessing and noting a specific instance in which he threw a slider on a 3-1 count. “He does a very good job mixing up pitches.”

The success is a bit of a new thing for the Railroaders and Johnson, who was not aware of the move up to the No. 5 spot in the rankings from getting honorable mention last week.

“One of the moms who is a secretary at the school told me about it in the hall,” Johnson said. “The guys see what they have done and that it has gotten them the No. 5 spot and they get the idea that it is going to take a lot of work to move up in the rankings or at least hold on to that spot.”