Maranacook Community High School’s baseball field offers a convenient vantage point beyond the fence in left field for those who prefer to watch a little baseball from the comfort of their car or truck.

Convenient, but also dangerous any time Cam Brochu strode to the plate for Maranacook. If he turned on a fastball, any vehicle parked above the embankment, roughly 360 feet from home plate, was at risk.

“Freshman year, I landed one really close to my coach’s Civic,” Brochu recalled. “I hit the roof of one this year. One of the players on our team, it was his mom’s car. I felt bad.”

Brochu not only never meant to hit anyone’s car, he insists he never meant to hit home runs.

“Every time I hit a home run, it was a mistake, honestly, because it was a fly ball that was supposed to be a line drive,” he said.

“He’s got one of the smoothest swings I’ve ever seen,” Brown said. “His power was pretty consistent through all four years. He is so strong. But he expanded his use of the opposite field and became a great hitter overall. He hit the ball hard, always.”

Brochu was much more than a home run hitter for the Black Bears in 2015, and throughout his entire career as a four-year starter for them. But there was no more intimidating presence at the plate in central Maine game in and game out.

“The main thing I always heard from opposing coaches was don’t let Brochu beat you,” Maranacook coach Eric Brown said. “But there weren’t as many intentional walks as I thought there would be this year. They tried to challenge him, and team after team paid for it.”

For his presence as a hitter and all-around baseball excellence, Cam Brochu is the Kennebec Journal’s Baseball Player of the Year.

Brochu could always hit, but he didn’t really become a power hitter until his high school career started. Ironically, that coincided with a ban on aluminum bats for safety reasons by the Maine Principal’s Association, which also reduced the number of home runs in high school baseball.

Yet he immediately felt more comfortable with the new BBCOR (Bat-Ball Coefficient of Restitution) bats that replaced the aluminum ones, and found they, along with regularly lifting weights, helped him hit for more power.

And, more often than not, it wasn’t caught. He batted .506, hit safely in all 19 games, and got on base 58 percent of the time. He posted a .917 slugging percentage with six home runs, 26 RBIs and 18 runs scored. He led the Black Bears, a Class C team in the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B, to an 11-8 record and the Western C semifinals.

Brochu never missed a game at Maranacook, a string of 71 games, and finished his career with 16 home runs.

But he was no one-dimensional, lead-footed-or-gloved slugger. He held down the corners of the infield as well as anyone and embraced the leadership responsibilities that came with being the only senior on the team.

“His defense is unbelievable,” Brown said. “As a first baseman, I don’t know his equal in central Maine, and I can probably say the same thing about him at third.”

“As a leader, he’s second to none,” Brown added. “Team was so important to him. He was very humble. It was never about him. He was always a kid I could turn to as a captain if I needed something done.”

Brochu was named the KVAC Class B Central Division Player of the Year and was a finalist for Maine’s Mr. Baseball award.

Long before the individual awards started piling up, Brochu enjoyed his senior season thoroughly.

“This was my favorite year. Everyone got along. We all had a good time bonding. Every week we’d go out to eat together,” he said. “I’m really appreciative of my teammates. I couldn’t have done it without them.”.

Brochu’s future plans include enrolling at Southern Maine Community College, where he will play baseball for his original coach at Maranacook, fellow Black Bear Jared Lemieux.

“He’s a good coach and I always liked the guy,” said Brochu, who will study business management. “He had me hitting fourth as a freshman here, which is kind of crazy.”

Not as crazy as parking beyond the left field fence at Maranacook was over the last four years.

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @RAWmaterial33

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