A blanket of heat covered the field at Urbana High School Sunday. Yet, on the last day of the American Legion baseball season for FSK Frederick Post 11 and Urbana, it was not the heat but the intensity.
Needing two wins to clinch their second consecutive Western Maryland District title, Frederick (32-7, 19-5 in the district) played with the intensity of a team that knows something greater has yet to be accomplished. Its two wins, 3-1 in the first game of the doubleheader and 13-3 in the second, were merely a prelude to the success they hope to achieve in the state American Legion Tournament, which it hosts at McCurdy Field starting on Friday
‘‘It feels great winning the district,” said Fredrick manager Tom Long. ‘‘I’ve always said one of the toughest things is that we have some quality teams in our district. ...
‘‘Probably three of them, right now, deserve to go to states to play. This district has really made us prepared this year to go to states.”
The preparation for a return trip to the state tournament started at the beginning of the season for Frederick, which returned two key components of last year’s team, Nick Meekins and Frank Zier.
Meekins (.500 batting average, 3.04 earned-run average) and Zier (.343 avg., 3.58 ERA) are three-year Legion players and both made clear the standard that was to be expected of those wearing the red and blue colors of Post 11.
‘‘We knew we were going to be good, but we didn’t know how good,” said Meekins. ‘‘We weren’t sure how good we were going to be until we essentially started playing and it turns out we are pretty darn good.”
‘‘We always like to have fun and when we have fun, we win,” said Zier. ‘‘We definitely have one of the looser groups, as I’m sure [Long] will tell you. We keep him young.”
‘‘They know I expect of them,” Long said. ‘‘It’s a real close-knit group, a real close group, and they are exciting to be around. They make me feel young.”
While Long may feel young, the Urbana team is young, at least in terms of Legion of experience. The 2008 season marked the first ever for Urbana (8-16, 8-14) under manager Andy Taylor.
It could have been expected, even understood, then, if the Urbana nine had rolled over to league-leading Fredrick on the last day of the season. Instead, Urbana played with the intensity and character that defined its team during the inaugural season.
In the first game, left-handed starter Sean Connole held Frederick to five hits in 7 innings and faced more than four batters in an inning only twice. The Urbana lineup also managed to place runners in scoring position in each of the last four innings, but could not push through the go-ahead run.
‘‘They never quit,” Taylor said. ‘‘That’s one thing about the team, they have a lot of confidence and they can hit. We can hit with anyone in the league.”
Having exhausted their pitching the day before in a comeback win over Funkstown, a win that dropped Funkstown to third in the conference standings and eventually out of the state tournament, Urbana was forced to use a makeshift rotation in the second game of the doubleheader.
Still, Urbana battled. A myriad of pitchers combined to hold Frederick hitless into the fourth inning and hold the score at 5-3 until an eight-run fifth inning broke the game open for Frederick.
‘‘These guys have come a long way. We’ve had a lot of close games and I think we’ve grown a lot,” said Taylor.
‘‘We’ve hung in there with the best but lost by one or two runs. ... We don’t give up,” said Urbana catcher Rob Rowse.
