PLATTSBURGH — The laughs and jokes were plenty. It was just friends playing baseball together one more time with some humor dashed in.
It was an intersquad scrimmage for the Clinton County Mariners, and the last relaxed moment for the team before Saturday.
“It’s great getting together, being with my guys, and just trying to build more trust and bond before we go down to Rochester is a big thing,” Scott LaMountain said. “We want to have some fun and hopefully bring back something for this area.”
The Mariners will begin tournament play at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at 11:30 a.m.
The tournament is being held at Rochester Institute of Technology through Wednesday.
With a 37-1 overall record — the lone loss being to the Champlain Mariners — Clinton County is perceived as one of the favorites going in. It’s not something the team is taking lightly.
“I think just play with the same grit, we always play with a little chip on your shoulder,” Warren Miller said. “Because everyone thinks just because we’re from the North Country we can’t play.”
Miller, arguably the best hitter and pitcher for the Mariners, enters the tournament batting .417 with 17 home runs and 58 RBI. Braeden Calkins adds to that punch with an average of .444 with 59 hits, 5 being homers and 54 RBI.
Landen Duprey and LaMountain add to the heart of the order that has combined to hit 40 home runs and score 377 runs, with a batting average of .356.
“This year, it’s been awesome,” Duprey said. “It’s a great team we have here. I’ve been playing with them since I was young, and it feels good to take this one all the way to the state finals.
“Me and half the guys here have been talking about this since the start of this year, just coming together again and just playing with all our friends.”
While the hitting has been impressive the pitching is just as stellar. Miller and Steve Bronson combined for a 13-0 record as both have a sub 1.00 ERA at .71 and .97, respectively.
So, they have what it takes and have the mindset to not take anything for granted.
“I mean, a lot of, like, our older guys have all especially, like, played in college, like I finished up my freshman year at St John Fisher,” Jordan Perry said. “That college experience too, like, a bunch of the older guys having that is definitely going to help, because they’ve been there.
“They’ve experienced that whether or not if they’ve been playing, or even if they weren’t playing, whatever, they’re still in that environment. They’ve still experienced that. They still experience pregames, stuff like that. So they kind of know, they know how those upperclassmen talk with them and stuff. So I think that that’s going to be a big factor.”
But, it hasn’t stopped them from enjoying the ride they’re on. They know this has been a special ride they don’t want to end anytime soon.
“I mean, I rate it at 10 out of 10,” Miller said. “This has been a blast with my boys one last time, and so yeah, we told ourselves at the start of the season, we got to make it count this year. So that’s our goal.”
Miller, who is starting the opening game against Rockland Post 130, knows the pressure is turned up a notch. Even if the Mariners swept Rockland in three games this season.
“We need to come to play on Saturday morning,” he said. “I need to be focused and just say to myself it could be my last game here in a Mariners jersey. I got to make it count.”
When the day ended Thursday, the team huddled together and knew it was time to turn the switch on and focus on the tournament.
“Our coaches told us what we have to face and what we got to expect,” LaMountain said. “The biggest thing is just battling as much as we can, pitch after pitch and being after as much as we can, wanting to have the competitive edge and trying to get after every team we can hopefully go for a run.”
The team is brimming with confidence, but nerves are there too. and as Perry said, it’s nothing the team can’t face.
“You almost, get your mind off of, like, the stressful task of, like, competing at states,” he said. “I, at least personally, I feel like when you stress stuff too much, sometimes it can kind of take the fun out of it, and also kind of just doesn’t make it feel like a game.
“It’s supposed to be a game. So, like, this kind of eases it off. But we, I mean, they were here last year. They know the scale of the tournament, stuff like that, so, like, we’re going to be ready.”
You can follow the action live on the NYS American Legion YouTube channel at: https://tinyurl.com/y9eheydy. It will also be tracked on the GameChanger app.