LEWISTON — Bates coach Mike Leonard isn’t surprised his team has picked itself up from an 0-6 start to start the season and won five of its last six.

Unfortunately, the Bobcats have faced much deeper off-the-field adversity. The deaths of classmate John Durkin and Kobe Huynh, a 14-year-old Auburn Middle School student they had “adopted” as a teammate just a few weeks earlier, gave the Bobcats a lot more important things to talk about than a rough road trip through the state of Georgia.

“They’re probably the closest group of kids I’ve coached since I’ve been here,” said Leonard, now in his fourth season at the helm. “They’ve been through a lot already this school year as a team.”

More adversity already awaits the Bobcats. Their first homestand this weekend against Tufts has been wiped out by winter’s ongoing grip. The hope is to open April 5 against CBB rival Bowdoin instead. Regardless of how the schedule unfolds, Bates has emerged from its 5-7 start confident it can take whatever comes next.

“We’ve got 12 NESCAC games and every game matters,” senior captain Griff Tewksbury said. “I think where we’ve been flat in the past is not being able to bounce back. To come back from that tough start I think shows a little bit of our make-up, a little bit of our character.”

It helps that the Bobcats have a lot of talent to go with their team makeup. Six of the team’s top eight hitters return from a team that went 19-17 (5-7 in NESCAC) last year, while a deep, senior-laden pitching staff could hold the key to challenging for the conference title.

Bates only had two practices inside Gray Cage under its belt before heading to Georgia, so Leonard wasn’t expecting a re-enactment of Sherman’s March. Fielding woes were the biggest culprit during the losing streak, a problem the coach figured would sort itself out once the Bobcats got re-acclimated to fielding on grass and dirt.

“But what the guys did a great job of was staying positive all week,” Leonard said. “They were really resilient. They took the opportunity to get better. That was our goal, to leave a better team than when we came.”

Getting healthier has helped with their improvement. Leonard has been easing junior catcher Mekae Hyde, the former Lewiston star and 2013 NESCAC All-Star, back into the lineup after having a rib that was pinching a nerve removed in two days before Thanksgiving.

“I’ve had good days and bad days, but really as the season progresses, I’ve had less and less bad days,” said Hyde, who is 3-for-11 with two RBIs in four games. “I’m trying not to push it too hard. That’s what I did right after I came back to school. I pushed it hard and I had to take a few weeks off.”

Tewskbury is back at 100 percent after shoulder injuries hampered him last season and already has three home runs. Combined with fellow senior and all-NESCAC second team selection Kevin Davis and juniors Rockwell Jackson and Nate Pajka, Leonard has more dangerous bats in his lineup than ever.

“We feel really good about our one-through-nine depth,” he said. “We’ve always had talented players here. I think we have more talented players on the whole, which makes it nice to be a little more balanced rather than top-heavy.”

Junior shortstop Alex Parker, the former St. Dom’s star, has added to that depth with a .474 on-base percentage (second on the team), as have sophomores Berto Diaz and Sam Warren.

The senior trio of Dean Bonneau, Chris Fusco and Brad Reynolds anchors a pitching staff with some promising young arms that could emerge as difference-makers.

“Those three seniors all have the ability to take us to a league championship,” Leonard said. “They’re all very talented, hard-working and they build off of each other. So I feel good about the top, and we’ve got a lot of pitching depth, too.”