White River Junction — Slowly but surely, the Upper Valley Nighthawks are coming together with two weeks left until opening day. Lights arrived at Maxfield Sports Complex on Wednesday morning, grandstands are scheduled to arrive Friday, and jerseys are sitting in a box in general manager Noah Crane’s dining room.

But like many GMs in the New England Collegiate Baseball League, Crane is still searching the country for players to fill his 30-man roster. In the Nighthawks’ case, a dearth of pitchers has created an unsightly hole in the starting rotation.

With the clock ticking down, Crane said it’s time for he and his fellow GMs to start getting creative.

“That’s the killer in summer baseball,” Crane said of his roster absences. “Pitching is harder to find than anything else. Arms are at a premium, mostly because coaches are more cautious. Supply is short, and if you’re a mid-major D-I (player) or a D-II, D-III player worth it, you’ve been scooped up by someone else.”

The Nighthawks have lost six pitchers from their initial roster of last fall, including Saint Louis University’s Jackson Wark and Hiller Hogan and Texas State’s Calvin Bush, all for various reasons ranging from poor collegiate performances to too many innings pitched to an ailing father that has forced a player to spend summer closer to home. The fluidity of a NECBL roster is relatively common; injuries, ailments and situations out of a team’s control force league GMs to work on the fly.

With most college baseball players already committed to summer teams, Crane is starting dig to a little deeper to find replacements.

“Fans want to win games,” he said. “If you have a guy that throws 97 (miles per hour) and can’t throw strikes, you might be a major league draft pick, but you can’t help us much. I’d rather see a guy that throws 85 or so who works hard and helps us win. The name recognition isn’t there; it’s more about the team.”

Crane has restocked the roster in recent weeks, signing 6-foot-9 Netherlands native Dylan Verdonk, a freshman at Seton Hall, Cincinnati righty Jared Yoakam and Kansas State’s Nick Jones. Seton Hall sophomore Cullen Dana is still projected to be the ace of the pitching staff, according to Crane, but two starting pitchers and one reliever still need to be added for the Nighthawks to reach an ideal 16-man staff.

Still, Crane is encouraged with the athletes on their way to the Upper Valley, even if his two best, Vanderbilt’s Walker Grisanti and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington’s Brian Mims, may arrive late because of their teams’ runs in the NCAA tournament. Despite the subtractions, the Nighthawks’ depth is key, Crane said.

“I think we’ll produce,” he said. “We have great roster depth. Our backups at almost every positions are really, really good. We’re hoping the personalities mesh, and their numbers are as good as indicated.

“We’ve set the bar high. I want to win the first game, I want to win the first home game and I want to make the playoffs. In our first year, that would be hard to top.”

The Nighthawks open their season June 8 in Montpelier against the Vermont Mountaineers and will host the Mountaineers three days later at Maxfield.

Josh Weinreb can be reached at jweinreb@vnews.com or at 603-727-3306.