This time last week, Adam Lawrence’s Manchester West team was trying to figure out what a baseball diamond still looked like. Now, the Blue Knights are trying to discover themselves.

Forced to cram its first seven games into eight days, West is using this early part of the season to determine what kind of team it will be.

In some ways, the results are encouraging. Despite dropping to 0-5 following a 10-0 loss to Salem on Tuesday, April 24, West’s hitters have adjusted nicely to live pitching.

Still without a practice field – the team has been inside the school’s gymnasium since the preseason opened – West overcame one-run scoring efforts in losses to Concord on Friday, April 20, and Nashua South on Saturday, April 21, to hang nine on Trinity in the first game of a doubleheader on Monday.

Though the Blue Knights added just one run in a 2-1 loss Alvirne later that day, they hit Broncos’ ace Casey Marques hard, loading the bases in the first inning and putting runners in scoring position late in the game to give themselves a chance to win it.

“I’ll tell ya, in our first game, we were real lucky to get a run,” said West senior outfielder and Bedford native Nick Travelyn, who had two hits and a run in the 18-9 setback to Trinity at Gill Stadium.

“But it’s definitely great that we know we can hit now, and that it can carry over. Hopefully it can get a snowball effect going, and we can keep picking up the pace. So hopefully, by the end of the year, we’ll be scoring six or seven runs a game.”

West may need it as the early season’s tight schedule has already stretched the pitching staff.

Lawrence, minus five since graduated hurlers, said he’s had to turn to “kids who haven’t thrown in three or four years because I just need arms.”

The team’s ace, Jon Nelson, has thrown twice, starting both 2-1 losses, while others like Ian Law, Pat Anderson and Jonathan Allard, the starter against Salem, have seen several innings in relief.

Cole Warren also made his first career start in the loss to Trinity, striking out three in two innings. “I’m seeing it already,” Lawrence said of the toll the season’s first week is taking. “It’s hard when you say, ‘I don’t know who’s pitching the next two games.’ That’s the worst part.”

Yet, as much as this opening stretch is about surviving, it’s also given Lawrence a chance to see whom he can rely upon.

After a game away at Winnacunnet on Wednesday, April 25, and another at home against Spaulding on Friday, April 27, they’ll return to their normal Monday- Wednesday-Friday schedule of games, barring any more inclement weather.

“The offense knew coming into this season that our pitching staff isn’t what it was last year, and we have to support them with a lot of runs,” said Travelyn, also the team’s leadoff hitter. “Now we’re starting to figure that out a little bit more, and the bats are coming alive as well. I’m pretty confident going into the next stretch of games we have going on.”

Notes West scored five of its runs against Trinity in a spirited sixth-inning rally, using hits from Travelyn, Tim Daley, Cassidy Lungo and Jake McCarthy, who plated two on a triple, to cut the lead to 14-9 at the time. Law, who batted twice in the inning, also walked and scored.

Against Alvirne, the Blue Knights again came alive in the sixth, as Brian Wheatcraft and Travelyn singled to start the inning and set the stage for Daley, who doubled home a run to tie the game, 1-1. The Broncos responded an inning and half later, however, with a leadoff double, a sacrifice bunt and the game-winner, an RBI single down the left-field line.