Urbana one of four new Legion outfits

Williamsport’s return to American Legion ball ends a five-year drought, while Urbana’s new entrance into the league conjures up memories of when Urbana High was still inside of Mount Airy’s Post 191 ‘‘Gold Star” territory.

But don’t look to Mount Airy head coach George Richardson, Sr., to be grumpy of another Legion team moving into the neighborhood.

‘‘It’ll be enjoyment having to play somebody Frederick and Funkstown eight times,” Richardson said.

American Legion teams get one home base school – Gold Star’s is South Carroll High. From that point, they can keep adding on neighboring schools until their total school populations reaches 5,000 students. The number hasn’t changed for the American Legion rules in a long while, but the schools continued to grow. This is even when South Carroll was reclassified from a Class 2A to Class 1A school.

‘‘As far as classification, no, they’re not getting bigger,” Richardson said. ‘‘But in enrollment, yes they are. All the schools in the state are just growing. It’s unbelievable how they are.”

So Urbana was dropped from Gold Star’s territory a few years back, leaving Gold Star with Linganore, South Carroll, Century and Liberty.

This winter, a movement started to bring Legion baseball back to Urbana. Andy Taylor, who lives in the Urbana area, was tapped to form the first-ever Urbana Legion.

Taylor played baseball at Frederick Community College and Fairmont State University in West Virginia. He also coached as a student assistant at Fairmont.

This past spring, he poured on the recruitment drive at Urbana and St. John’s Catholic Prep. With only those two schools, he was still under the recruitment cap. Initially, there was plans to add in Clarksburg, a team that’s already in the Damascus Legion’s territory.

‘‘I was trying to get special clearance from the state to get players that were cut from the Damascus team, but it didn’t come through,” Taylor said.

Even with only two schools to pick from, Taylor filled out a 16-man roster, including a couple college-level selections.

From the Vikings, Urbana Legion signed up Sean Connole, a left-handed pitcher and the top hitter for the Vikings the past two seasons. His older brother, Tim Connole, is on as shortstop and as a pitcher.

Urbana graduate Tim Summers, now pitching at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, is a right-handed pitcher.

Vincent Smarrelli, biggest bat from Urbana’s team in 2008, will get time in at second.

After a stellar junior season, Kurtis Voytell was supposed to have a solid senior year. But an ACL surgery relegated him to mostly designated hitting, something that he’ll initially start with for Urbana Legion. He’s also a possible at first or third.

Urbana Legion worked its entire roster onto the field on Sunday, losing a double-header to Berkeley 13-3 and 11-0.

One thing Urbana Legion is without is a Post, though. The team is not affiliated with any branch of the American Legion, so it’s known only as Urbana Legion.