High School Sports: Baseball

PAWTUCKET — He calmly walked to the center of the McCoy Stadium infield and accepted the Most Valuable Player award without showing much emotion — which probably isn’t surprising for a teenager who already has made history and influenced the future.

Baseball may be a team sport, but make no mistake about it, Cranston West would not have become the first public high school baseball team in 32 years to win back-to-back Division I state titles without 17-year-old Anthony Meo.

Last night, the junior right-hander delivered one of the all-time best pitching performances in a Rhode Island high school playoff game as West captured its second straight crown with a 5-0 victory over South Kingstown last night.

With the title on the line, Meo went 6 2/3 innings without giving up a hit in the seven-inning contest. He was one out away from recording perhaps the only no-hitter pitched in a state-title clinching game when a high chopper bounced off his glove and rolled into center field.

But last night’s classic mound effort was only the latest chapter in Meo’s amazing saga.

Last spring, he was a sophomore who had never started a varsity game when the Cranston West coaching staff gave him the ball to pitch the third and deciding game of Cranston West’s best-of-three semifinal playoff series against Hendricken, the three-time defending state champion.

Nobody who wasn’t wearing a Cranston West uniform expected much from the untested sophomore, but Meo stunned the state’s baseball fans with a three-hitter that ended Henddricken’s reign as state champion and sent Cranston West to the state title series.

The Falcons didn’t need Meo’s help again in last year’s title series as they swept to their first state crown in 32 years with two straight victories.

Six starters from that championship team, including a couple of All-Staters, graduated last spring, plus their veteran head coach retired. That meant the Falcons needed to do some rebuilding this season, and it certainly helped that Meo was there to provide the foundation.

Meo knows he has played a major role in a historic athletic accomplishment. He knows he and his teammates have done something that three decades of public school baseball players couldn’t do, but Meo also knows what the Falcons have done the last two years could influence the future of high school baseball in Rhode Island.

For it’s no secret that for a long time, baseball players from Cranston have watched some of their teammates in Little League and Babe Ruth help some of the state’s private high school teams win state championships.

And while people will talk about academics, there’s no question the opportunity to play for a high-profile baseball program influenced some of the decisions to go private, rather than public, for the high school years.

But now Cranston West, one of those public schools that legitimately can match its academic opportunities with any high school in the state, has won two consecutive state championships.

It could change the Rhode Island high school baseball landscape.

“I guess it now gives us a name,” said senior Chris Famiglietti, one of the four players who was a starter on both of the state championship teams. “No public school has done it in 32 years. It has to be something special.”

“It may be something to look forward to for other kids,” said Meo. “They saw history being made tonight.”

And maybe the future being changed.

jgillool@projo.com