The Northview Chiefs baseball team split a pair of games during the opening week of summer baseball.

The A team, made up of mostly rising juniors and seniors from the 1A school, lost to 6A Tate High School at The University of West Florida, while the B team took on the Aggies in Bratt.

“I wanted to get them ready for the season and kind of throw them to the wolves,” coach Martin Lister said of a summer schedule that consists of much bigger area schools. “I wanted to teach them to compete. We don’t expect to win, but we expect to compete.”

Lister and his team will take this attitude into this weekend with games slated against Pensacola Catholic and Escambia High School. The Chiefs will meet Escambia again on their home field on Tuesday, June 18 with the B team playing at 4 p.m. and the A team playing at 6:30.

Last year’s starting catcher Brannon Freeman pitched for the Chiefs Tuesday and did “OK” his coach said.

“He didn’t have much help behind him,” Lister said.

Freeman, who will also catch next season, will join a rotation already consisting of one of the team’s top pitchers from last season, Daulton Tullis.

“We would like to have three pitchers,” Lister said. “I feel good about (Freeman) and Tullis.”

The summer games allow Lister to scout his team for other starters. The Chiefs are looking to fill holes at left field and third base, Lister said. He added that the team would also need to replace a starting pitcher to fill the hole left by Kevin Vaughan, who recently signed to play for Wallace State, as well as find some depth at catcher.

“Hopefully R.J. (Pritchett) can do the job,” Lister said.

Overall, Lister said he was glad to see his team compete against the bigger school.

“We did some good things and we did some bad things,” he said.