The Laurel Post 60 baseball team improved to 5-2 overall, and the American Legion squad did so in dramatic fashion June 14 at Marriotts Ridge High School.

Mitchell Smith, a 6-foot-2 left-handed hitter, led off the bottom of the seventh and last inning with a solo home run to right field against Bowie pitcher Nick Willoughby to give Laurel a 9-8 win. Smith got the win on the mound as he recorded the last three outs in the top of the seventh.

Smith knows the field well: He will be a senior this fall at Marriotts Ridge in Howard County. It was the first homer of the summer for Smith and the second for the team. “I was very excited for him,” said Rob Medoff, a Mt. Hebron graduate who started at designated hitter.

“Last year we didn’t do well,” said Matt Schmauder, a second baseman and outfielder for Laurel. “This team, this year, is a lot younger. We may be younger but we have some good players.”

During regular-season play, the American Legion teams use aluminum bats. But this weekend Laurel Post 60 will play in a wood bat tournament in State College, Pa. Laurel is guaranteed games June 19, 20 and 21. Some but not all of the teams in the tourney are American Legion squads.

Among the college students on the Laurel team are Schmauder, who will be a sophomore this fall at Penn State-Altoona, outfielder-designated hitter Brad Wandell (a student at the University of Kansas), pitcher-outfielder Medoff (who plays on the club team at Maryland) and Nick Meyer, who pitched this spring at Stevenson University. Brody Tennant (Mt. Hebron) was the starting pitcher for Laurel against Bowie.

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