Outfielder Miles Frenette sounds more like a college senior than a recent St. Dominic Academy graduate. 

He is articulate, wise beyond his years and has his heart set on winning a Class D baseball championship for the Saints before he heads off to Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he will study business administration. 

More rain in Saturday’s forecast has pushed Frenette’s final game from Saturday to Tuesday, when the Saints (13-5) will face Bangor Christian School (16-1) at Mansfield Stadium in Bangor at 6:30 p.m. 

Being the only senior and captain on a team laden with young, promising talent doesn’t faze Frenette. He knows the Saints have a bright future ahead of beyond Tuesday’s state title game, and his easy-going demeanor sometimes masks a solemnity that often reveals itself when he speaks about this team and coach.  

“Being the only senior means that they are going to do even better next year, and I think it is great to watch how we’ve developed. And I have played the same amount of high school baseball as the juniors have because of COVID-19,” Frenette said. “I think it is an interesting thing to watch how we evolved and developed.”

Frenette said the Saints dealt with the usual team issues at the beginning of the season. 

“It is interesting sometimes when you have issues,” Frenette said. “But compared to the start of the year … we now have kind of developed into one team, one family and we are all united, in a way, and we have much less issues now then we had at the beginning.” 

Frenette swings a big bat, batting .523 this season, and he leads the team in hits with 31, including a home run.  

He helped the Saints cop another Class D regional title with his two doubles that helped St. Dom’s escape with a 4-1 victory over Searsport at St. Joseph’s College on Wednesday. 

Frenette said he had a “good feeling” about the game against the Vikings.  

“Me and some other kids went to the batting cages before (the game),” Frenette said after the game. “We’ve been doing that a lot recently. I kind of get dragged up (out) my house to bat with them, and they are just always on it. 

“I had a good feeling while we were batting here in the cage with coach Bob Blackman, and we’ve been working a lot on batting practice this year. Coach even told us he’s never worked this much on batting practice. He’s throwing until his arm falls off for us.” 

Frenette played three sports that included being a member of the St. Dom’s golf and hockey teams. 

Winning back-to-back Class D baseball crowns would become another fond memory for Frenette. 

“We are just as eager (to win the title) because it would be awesome to go back-to-back and they are going to be even better next year,” Frenette said. “So they will have a shot at it next year, and to do that and watch them coming from when I was a sophomore and a lot of the other guys were freshmen, we went 0-14 and ended up winning two games in the playoffs.”

Since moving from Class C to Class D, St. Dom’s regular season schedule has consisted mostly of Class C opponents. The first season, in 2021, the team had only 11 players: one sophomore (Frenette), nine freshman and an eighth-grader. The young Saints lost all of their regular season games, then advanced to the D South semifinals.

Last year, St. Dom’s went 6-8 in the regular season then won the Class D state championship.

This season, in their third year together, the Saints were 11-5 in the regular season, earning the region’s third seed, and have added wins over second seed Richmond and top seed Searsport in the playoffs.

The players’ increase of experience has been aided by Blackman, who has been the Saints’ head coach for 19 years and led them to six state titles — 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2015 and 2022.

“I don’t know many other coaches through baseball in the state of Maine, but he has to be one of he best,” Frenette said. “To watch how that guy plays and to do things that we do in practice … you might question him if it was any other coach, but since it is coach Bob Blackman, you don’t question him. You just do what he says to do. You know he knows what he is talking about.” 

PROUD COACH 

Blackmon has coached Frenette for the past three seasons and appointed Frenette captain for the last two years. 

“By default, he has been the oldest for three years with this group,” Blackman said. “This has been a young group of boys. He has taken the bull by the horn and led by example, and this year he really came together at the plate. 

“He was always solid, but not like this year. His batting average was .523 during the year, so by far he was leading us in hitting and hitting the ball hard.” 

Blackman said Frenette “is a leader at heart and enjoys that aspect of it.” 

Frenette’s gravitas has also earned him the respect from his teammates.

“The boys look up to him and (he is) a nice kid,” Blackman said. “He would do anything for you. So I am very pleased with him.” 

UP NEXT

From what he has heard through the baseball pipeline, Frenette said Bangor Christian has a good pitcher.

That would be Jason Libby, who in May set a state record with 22 strikeouts in a seven-inning no-hitter against Stearns — a dropped third strike forced Libby to face an extra batter, whom he also struck out. 

The Patriots might have caught a break from the weather, because the games being moved to Tuesday provides Libby with three more days of rest. That means he’ll be available no matter how many pitches he threw in Bangor Christian’s 12-1 win over Katahdin in Wednesday’s D North championship.

Frenette admits that facing Libby might seem intimidating, but he points out that the Saints have gone up against several tough pitchers this season, including Sacopee Valley, which was unbeaten before falling to Monmouth, 1-0, in the C South final Wednesday. St. Dom’s faced the Hawks twice this season and lost the second game by only one run, 6-5, the closest game Sacopee Valley had in the regular season.

Copy the Story Link

« Previous

Baseball: Brandon Smith returned to the diamond and found a role with Monmouth

Next »

‘Why not us?’: Edward Little rallies from eighth seed to Class A baseball final