POULSBO — For the Poulsbo Panthers’ baseball team, what looked to be a rebuilding year turned out to be a season in which the squad quickly transformed raw talent into success on the diamond.

Off the bat, the Panthers had a new skipper — veteran Little League and Babe Ruth coach David Jones — and an almost entirely new batch of players competing at the junior high school varsity level.

“What’s exciting is that we (had) only one returning on varsity,” Jones said. “Everybody moved up.”

Starting pitcher Mychal Harris led the team this year with five starts and three home runs and Jamaal Smith led the team with seven extra base hits. But there was a talented mix of players down the team’s line-up that would step up in any given game, from Jeff Jones’ 4-for-4 performance versus Central Kitsap to Matt Romero’s 3-for-3 game with a double versus Marcus Whitman.

In the first game of the year, Poulsbo came out of the starting gates with five innings of shut out baseball versus the CK Cougar Cubs. But the Cubs fought back, putting five runs on the board in the last two innings to win the game.

However, that loss motivated the Panthers, who went on to win four straight, including victories over Fairview, Marcus Whitman, Cedar Heights and their cross-north end rivals the Kingston Cavs.

The winning streak indicated to Jones he had a team that could be a force around the junior high league.

“We can compete against anybody in this league,” Jones said. “Our expectations were pretty high this year.”

After a loss to Ridgetop, the team went on to secure three additional wins before dropping the final game in a slugfest to Kingston 14-7. Nonetheless, the team improved from 6-5 in 2003 to 7-3 in 2004. The Panthers’ record this year was also its best in at least seven years.

Jones said he credits much of the success to his team’s versatility to play in different situations.

“We’re a team that can play the long ball,” Jones said, “but we can also play the small ball.”