Smith Post continues its dominance over the rest of the league and the region as it wins it's 2nd consecutive District Championship with a 6-1 victory over Utica Post. 

After trying to unseat Smith in the 2009 County and District Championship, Utica Post will have to settle for a chance meeting in the State Finals in order to show some parity exists in the league.

Today's 6-1 victory, whereby Smith was in control of the game from the very beginning to the end, continues to show that Smith can play whatever kind of game it needs to win the big games.  The most impressive aspect of their strength is their consistent ability to make routine plays and force the other teams to play at levels that they either are not capable of physically playing at, or cannot mentally maintain that higher level of play in crucial situations over 7 to 9 innings.

They find ways to beat your number one pitcher and get number one performances from their number 5 pitchers when they need it.  They throw strikes most of the time and couple that with Zack Ciccotti behind the plate the advantage lies with Smith.  Zack is the one constant on the Smith team that makes it all work.  He handles the pitching staff with strong leadership and total baseball awareness for however many innings you need him.  Of course it doesn't hurt to have Kyle Richardson on the mound throwing to you, but Kyle and Zack together are essentially almost unbeatable. 

There is an unspoken expectation when Smith is on the field, that simply doesn't exist very often these days, and that is 18 unconditional athletes in the same uniforms, playing for two of the best coaches in Central New York and a Post with a tradition of winning which doesn't require explanation by the coaching staff.  With so many conditional players on the field these days, all odds are in favor of Smith to win.

There is no knowing today, what the next weeks competition will bring for Smith.  There are some pretty formidable teams showing up next week.  Smith will start off with Rockland County's OTB Pirates, always a power house and noticeably absent from the  States these past few years.  One could assume the Pirates have re-mixed the formula for success and are ready to frost everyone once again, as they consistently did not too very long ago.  But one thing is for certain, we have all seen Tony Sr. and Jr. in other State finals work the counts, run the bases, hit and run, etc. with great success.  Expect nothing less from them once again; they'll come to play unconditionally.