BANGOR, Maine — The Coffee News Comrades of Bangor had an historic 2014 American Legion baseball season.
Coach Dave Morris’ club won the program’s first state championship since 1979 and scored a solid top-four finish at the Northeast regional tournament with a 2-2 record.
The Comrades have crafted a formidable sequel to that success story so far this summer, following up Bangor High School’s second straight Class A state title with a 13-5 Legion record good for second place in the final Zone 1 regular-season standings.
Emerging from this year’s zone tournament, which begins Wednesday at Husson University, won’t be easy for the defending state champs, as the beefed-up Zone 1 ranks boast arguably their deepest postseason field in years.
All six qualifiers have winning percentages of at least .545, with the seventh-place RTD 39ers of Madison also in position to finish at .500 with a win in its regular-season finale against the Penquis Navigators of Dover-Foxcroft on Tuesday.
That field includes the four participants in Wednesday’s single-elimination play-in games, with third-seeded Brewer (13-5) facing No. 6 Motor City of Orono (10-8) at 4 p.m. and No. 4 R.H. Foster-Hampden (12-6) meeting No. 5 Trenton (11-7) at 7 p.m.
The Brewer-Motor City survivor will face Coffee News of Bangor in the first game of the tournament’s four-team, double-elimination phase at 4 p.m. Thursday, followed at 7 p.m. by top-seeded Post 51 of Oakland (14-4) against the R.H. Foster-Trenton winner.
The tournament continues with games at 4 and 7 p.m. games both Friday and Saturday with an if-necessary game for the zone championship at 7 p.m. Sunday.
The top two finishers in the zone tournament qualify for the eight-team state championships to be held July 29-Aug. 2 at the Wainwright Complex in South Portland.
Coffee News of Bangor — the lone team in the field that draws players from just one high school — enters the zone tournament as one of its favorites thanks to a veteran corps anchored by the 1-2 pitching punch of lefthander Trevor DeLaite and righty Andrew Hillier as well as fellow 2014 All-Zone 1 first-team honorees Sam Huston, Kyle Stevenson and Ben Crichton.
The addition this summer of Post 51, a refugee from the disbanded former Zone 2 ranks, not only has added to the depth atop the Zone 1 standings but renewed one of the better high school-age baseball rivalries of recent vintage in the state.
The Oakland-based team, which won the Zone 2 tournament last summer, is made up primarily of players from Messalonskee High School in Oakland, which won the 2012 Class A state crown and the 2013 EM title before bowing to Bangor in postseason play each of the last two seasons.
Post 51 also has benefitted from key additions from other Waterville-area schools such as Dylan Hapworth of Winslow, A.J. Godin of Waterville and Cody Martin of Fairfield.
The addition of Post 51 does in no way diminish the more traditional Zone 1 rivalry between Bangor and Brewer, which met for the Eastern A high school title this spring. The Brewer Falcons Legion team not only features the best of that high school squad including pitcher-infielder Matt Pushard and shortstop Logan Rogerson, but also fields key players from Bucksport High School’s Eastern Maine Class C championship team led by pitcher Carter DeRedin.
If there is a surprise team in the zone this year it may be a youthful R.H. Foster-Hampden squad. Pitching has been the key for R.H. Foster led by the likes of Casey Sudbeck, Nick Guerrette and Tommy Farrar.
Trenton is anchored by the 1-2 pitching tandem of Gage Feeney and Conor Maguire, while Motor City was sparked to the final playoff berth by Cody Collins, Tommy Burns and Jackson Coutts.
