New faces in new places just might be the theme of the class AA Coeur d'Alene Lumbermen American Legion baseball team this season.

Only four players return from last year's roster - Joe Roletto, who played this spring at Columbia Basin College, Jacob Gonzales (Big Bend Community College), Brett Robbins (Coeur d'Alene High) and Suraj Kedia (Lake City High) back this season.

"Jake was primarily a pitcher in college this year and will play some infield," Coeur d'Alene coach Lloyd Duman said. "Joe is going to be the ultimate utility man. He's going to do a bit of everything and do anything and everything. He's studying to be an engineer, so maybe we'll have him level the infield. Brett will be in either left or right and Suraj will be in the outfield and pitch."

J.J. Winger (first base, pitcher), Colton Gray (outfield, pitcher), Carter Chaffin (outfield, pitcher), Colby Kennedy (infield) are up from the "A" Loggers.

Devin Kluss (pitcher, outfield), infielders Derek Griffin, Shawn Montee and Bryson Peterson, Michael Hicks (first base, pitcher), Stephen Babich (pitcher, outfield) Elliot Sparks (pitcher) and catcher Ethan Brandt round out the roster.

Kolby DeHaas and Nick Nyquist, who played third base and shortstop last year, have moved on to the Club Spokane Dodgers under-18 team.

"We're young enough that we need to decide what kind of team we're going to be and see what kind of team we'll be," said Duman, who has been with the program since 1993.

"I'm confident that we won't be a hitting team like we were last year and we'll play a little more small ball, but time will tell."

And, after more than four decades at McEuen Field, the Lumbermen have moved to a new home at Ramsey Park.

"There's some nice things about the park," said Duman, beginning his eighth season as head coach. "It's going to be nice because it's new, but it's not going to be McEuen and never going to be McEuen. I think it's going to be exciting because we're going somewhere new."

Coeur d'Alene opens the season on Saturday at the Dale Dahlgren Memorial Day tournament in Missoula, facing the Kalispell Lakers at 2 p.m. PDT at Osprey Field. They'll also face the Helena Senators on Sunday at 10 a.m. and Bozeman Bucks at 12:30 p.m. at Maverick Field and face the host Missoula Mavericks on Monday at 12:30 p.m., with the AA championship game at 3.

The team's home opener is scheduled for Wednesday against Prairie at 5 p.m.

"We're definitely going into the season young and are going to take our lumps early on," Duman said. "We've been talking about peaking at the right time of the season and moving to one level at a time."

Trail, British Columbia, is taking a one-year hiatus from Legion baseball and Cranbrook, B.C., has dropped its program, leaving just three teams - Coeur d'Alene, Prairie and Lewis-Clark - to compete in the North Idaho League and the Class AA Area A (district) tournament at Harris Field July 25-28, with the winner advancing to the state tournament at Rocky Mountain High in Meridian July 30-Aug. 2.

Coeur d'Alene has qualified for state each of the last nine seasons.

"Legion baseball is really changing," Duman said. "Having select teams has really decimated us. Trail was having trouble for a while with travel costs and getting enough players. They had jumped to go to the Spokane league, but I heard they just pulled out. Cranbrook just couldn't field a team, so what we've done is become more of a tournament-type team."

They will still play Prairie and Lewis-Clark four times each, to determine seeding to districts.

"We kind of decided that if we're not going to have a league, we're still going to play a lot of tournaments," Duman said. "At the end of the season, we're going to host Missoula and we wanted to do a quick trip to Kalispell (July 18-19), so our schedule looks a lot different. We went to Boise last year, so we wanted to do something different this year."

Coeur d'Alene added the Apple Cup tournament in Wenatchee, Wash., June 13-16 and Whitworth Summer Classic in Spokane June 27-29, in addition to three tournaments at Ramsey Park - the Border Wars tournament, Best of the Northwest, and the Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Wood Bat tournament starting on July 4, as well as the Clackamas tournament July 11-14 in Oregon.