The din of celebration was still in the air, and Peter Kemble was off to begin the next chapter of his baseball career.
Less than 24 hours after helping Bangor High School capture its fourth consecutive Class A state championship with a dramatic 4-3, nine-inning victory over Falmouth on Saturday, the newly graduated pitcher-outfielder was bound for Florida where he will play this summer for Boca Raton Blazers of the South Florida Collegiate League.
The 18-year-old Kemble and his mother Karen reached their destination early Tuesday, and Kemble hoped to make his debut in the wooden-bat league on Wednesday.
“I’ll probably be a reliever and I’ve had about a week since I last pitched in the playoffs so I’ll be ready to go,” he said. “I relieved a lot when I was younger in the Bangor program and then worked my way into a starting role, so I don’t think the adjustment will be difficult.”
Kemble, who will join the University of Maine baseball program after he returns in early August, was one of the state’s top pitchers this spring as the ace of a Bangor staff that allowed barely one earned run per game during its 16-4 season.
The right-hander finished 6-2 with just one earned run allowed in 53 innings for a microscopic 0.13 earned run average. He struck out 68 batters and walked seven in eight starts while yielding only 32 hits.
Kemble was named to the All-Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class A first team for his play this spring, which also included a .304 batting average with 17 hits, 15 walks, 10 RBIs and 14 stolen bases in as many attempts for coach Dave Morris’ club.
The South Florida Collegiate League features players largely from NCAA Division I, Division II and junior college programs in a 10-team league that has a 40-game regular-season schedule with an all-star game in early July and playoffs that conclude during the first week of August.
Tyler Schwanz, a senior outfielder at UMaine this past spring, was a 2016 SFCL all-star and Ryan Worthington, a freshman pitcher with the Black Bears in 2017, is joining Kemble in the league this summer.
“I just want to develop some different pitches and get a look at some higher-level competition,” said Kemble of his opportunity.
Kemble, the son of former UMaine pitcher and assistant coach Jay Kemble, verbally committed to join the Black Bears after his freshman year at Bangor, then went on to help the Rams with the last three of four consecutive state titles.
He also helped Bangor win back-to-back American Legion state championships in 2015 and 2016, the Comrades’ first titles since 1979.
Kemble will join fellow Bangor alumni Justin Courtney and Trevor DeLaite on the pitching staff at UMaine, which is expected to hire a new head coach in the coming days.
But before he arrives on the Orono campus, Kemble plans to use his summer baseball sojourn to Florida to further develop his pitching repertoire.
“I’ll do a lot of tinkering with changeup grips and different ways of throwing it and then work on a little bit of a cutter,” he said. “I’ve thrown (the cutter) before but haven’t done it as consistently as my fastball or curveball or even my changeup.”
