Brooks Robinson All-Star Game a day at the park for seniors

The best scholastic baseball players in the Baltimore area had their day in the the sun at Sunday’s Brooks Robinson High School All-Star Game at Camden Yards.

All-stars from the North and South teams were recognized in a ceremony before the Miami Marlins-Orioles game. Each player received a ceremonial bat and handshakes from Orioles outfielder Joey Rickard and Brooks Robinson himself — the 81-year-old Hall of Famer spent some of his Father’s Day at the ballpark.

The players watched the first few innings of the Orioles game while eating lunch indoors, then came out to catch a few more innings from the upper deck in right field.

“It was amazing coming out here,” said Century infielder Nathanael Hibbs, the Carroll County Times’ Player of the Year. “I’ve never been on a field this nice. I definitely soaked it in.”

Then, after the major leaguers were done, the high schoolers took the field, with the South winning, 6-5.

Anne Arundel County players representing the South accounted for six of the team’s eight hits and four RBIs, while Chesapeake’s Joe Seidler and Northeast’s Tyler Green combined for three shutout innings in the victory.

Severna Park’s Cam Clark, the Capital Gazette’s Player of the Year, went 3-for-4, drove in a run and scored a run in the South’s victory. He was named the Most Valuable Player for the South.

“Today it was good to get back on the field with a lot of high school guys,” Clark said. “We won, and we didn’t win the last one at Severna Park, which is always our goal. My brother played here three years ago, and he said regardless of how you do in the field and how you do at the plate, you just love it. You’re playing at Camden Yards, and the odds of you ever doing that again in your life are so slim.”

The South scored two runs on three hits and took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Clark led off the inning with a double and scored on Severna Park teammate Kody Milton’s single. Two hitters later, Archbishop Spalding’s Peter Godrick doubled in the second run.

“A lot us know each other, so it was pretty cool to get out here and play at Camden Yards,” Godrick said. “It’s something special to get to say you played at Camden Yards for your last high school game.”

Seidler took over the mound duties in the top of the third and pitched two scoreless innings for the South. He struck out the first hitter he faced in the third and gave up a walk and a single before getting a flyout to end the inning. Two more runners reached in the fourth, but a line drive to short ended that threat. He gave up two hits and struck out a pair.

“It was a fantastic feeling being out here today,” Seidler said. “It was pretty cool running out onto the field and feeling like everyone is a pro out here.”

After the North went ahead with a three-run top of the fifth, Clark and Milton each had run-scoring run singles during a four-run bottom of the fifth and the South went back on top, 6-3. Milton finished 2-for-3 with a pair of RBIs.

Green came on in the top of the seventh and recorded a pair of strikeouts and earned the save. The North put a pair of runners on in the inning, but Green got Hibbs to fly out to secure the victory. As is customary in the game, the South batted in the bottom of the inning despite having the lead.

With the victory, the South avenged last year’s loss to the North and cut the all-time deficit to 19-15-2.

No school had more representation in the game than Century, which fielded four players.

The loss mattered little to them compared with the experience and the accomplishments of the spring.

“It felt like another ‘hoo-rah,’” said Jeremy Lapp, who pitched Century to the Class 2A state championship three weeks ago. “From states and then we’re playing an all-star game at Camden Yards, it feels … like a team.”

Century went 20-3 this season and won Carroll County Athletic League and 2A West Region titles before capturing its first state crown by beating La Plata 4-1 on May 26 at Ripken Stadium.