Tourney teams seeking to end Zone 4 control Bangor opens Saturday morning; Brewer in evening

BANGOR – There will be no true Cinderella stories in this year’s state American Legion baseball tournament.

Of the eight teams that will play in the double-elimination event that begins Saturday at Mansfield Stadium in Bangor, seven were seeded first or second in their zone.

And the eighth team, Bessey Motors of South Paris, is made up primarily of players from Oxford Hills High, the 2005 Class A high school state champion.

Six teams are back from the 2004 field, with Zone 1 champion Brewer and Zone 3 regular-season champ New Auburn the only newcomers.

“It looks like everyone probably played the way they were supposed to during the season and got in,” said Brewer coach David Morris.

The tournament is back in Bangor for the first time since 2001, with Zone 1 runnerup Bangor (20-6) facing Zone 2 champion Monmouth (20-2) at 10 a.m. in Saturday’s first game. Zone 4 champion Andrews Post of Portland (22-1) meets New Auburn (17-6) at 1:30 p.m., followed by Zone 4 runnerup Nova Seafood of Portland (18-6) against Zone 3 tourney champion Bessey Motors (17-7) at 4:30 and Zone 1 champion Brewer (24-2) against Zone 2 runnerup Gardiner (16-8) at 7.

Recent history suggests the state championship will go through Zone 4, which has won the last seven titles.

Coach Mike Rutherford’s Andrews Post club has been led by outfielder Joey Martin and second baseman John O’Brion.

Nova Seafood – the 2004 national champ – has suffered some significant losses since then, among them pitchers Ryan Reid – now playing for Sanford of the New England Collegiate Baseball League – and Mike Powers, a University of Maine-bound righthander shut down since the spring with a shoulder injury.

But coach Mike D’Andrea’s team still has a formidable nucleus led by shortstop Ryan Flaherty, the state’s 2005 Mr. Baseball, and catcher Andrew Giobbi, both headed for Vanderbilt University in the fall; and pitcher-outfielder Chris Burleson, the 2005 Southern Maine Actitivies Association player of the year.

“Obviously Andrews and Nova are going to have to be reckoned with,” said Bangor coach John Winkin. “Andrews has had a big year, and Nova now is starting to come along. When they lost Powers and some of their other pitching they got shook up, but they’ve got good players and they’re aggressive.

“They’ve got that great tournament experience, and so does Andrews. O’Brion and Martin are really exceptional players for them.”

Brewer is the last non-Zone 4 team to win the state title with back-to-back championships in 1996 and 1997.

The Falcons feature the 1-2 pitching punch of righthanders Pat Moran and Andrew Patterson, and an offense led by third baseman Kevin McAvoy that pounded out 60 hits in four zone tournament wins.

“We’re obviously going to be playing some very good baseball teams and some teams with a lot of experience,” said Morris, “but what we did during our zone tournament was take one game at a time. If we can continue to do that, good things can happen for us.”

Bangor’s strength is its pitching depth with righthanders Josh Young, Keith Nason, Anthony DeRosa, Brian Hackett and Eric Anderson. For Young, Nason and DeRosa, who saw little or no action during the high school/college season, the Legion regular season represented was essentially preseason camp.

“We’ve had to take those three guys and bring them along like spring training,” said Winkin. “How far they’ve come along in the last few weeks is going to be a big key for us.”

Hackett, a talented third baseman also spearheads the Bangor offense, and how well the 20-6 Comrades hit may also determine how they fare on their home field.

Monmouth, which eliminated Bangor from last year’s state tourney, dominated Zone 2 this summer, then beat Franklin County and Gardiner by a combined 32-4 to win the zone tournament.

Gardiner features the nucleus of a Gardiner High team that reached the Eastern A semifinals last spring, defeating Moran and his Hampden Academy club in the quarterfinals.

New Auburn earned an automatic berth to the states by winning the Zone 3 regular-season title before being ousted by No. 4 Bessey Motors 15-10 in a zone tourney semifinal.

Bessey Motors, a state tournament semifinalist each of the last two years, is led by pitcher-outfielder Matt McDonnell and third baseman Kyle Keniston.