PARIS — Lacrosse, track and field, video games and apathy have gained a foothold across the state.

High school baseball teams often travel to regular-season games with the bare minimum nine players, armed with one or two substitutes if they’re lucky. Long-standing American Legion programs dry up and go on sabbatical.

Good thing nobody told Matt Verrier that baseball isn’t cool anymore.

“It’s something I always knew I wanted to do,” the recent Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School graduate said.

Verrier could mean simply about being a maximum-year starter for one of the most consistently strong high school and Legion programs in the state.

Or earning a full athletic scholarship at the University of Maine.

Being Maine’s Gatorade Player of the Year and a finalist for the John Winkin Award as the state’s best senior player, perhaps.

How about playing for a Class A championship?

They all apply.

Verrier will work behind the plate and be entrenched as the No. 3 hitter in a patient, productive, unyielding lineup when Oxford Hills meets Biddeford for the state title at noon Saturday on the campus of Saint Joseph’s College.

“We’re excited about it,” Verrier said. “From the first time we ever played together in Little League and middle school, we thought about this.”

Even then, Verrier was on track to be one of the state’s best homegrown players of his generation. Like any athlete worthy of that distinction, however, his multi-sport potential provoked a series of fateful decisions.

In addition to his undeniable skills with the bat and the mitt, Verrier has run and passed for touchdowns on the football field. He has hit buzzer beaters on the varsity basketball court.

“I was a wrestler, too,” Verrier said. “I wrestled and played baseball growing up. Then all my friends were playing basketball, so I gave up wrestling.”

Verrill also bid farewell to football as a freshman, never again seeing action until he took over as the Vikings’ starting QB in the third game of his senior season.

That sacrifice gave Verrier the freedom to travel across the country, pursue off-season camps and play fall baseball in front of college scouts. It also afforded him the opportunity to work out at Frozen Ropes Training Center in Portland and seek the counsel of former Deering and Maine slugger Nick Caiazzo and minor league hitting instructor Ken Joyce.

“I always hit with my dad (Paris police chief David Verrier) a lot,” Verrier said. “It was probably when I was in sixth grade, maybe 12 years old, that I started getting a lot of help with my swing from trained professionals.”

Becoming a catcher also was a calculated decision.

As one of the tallest, strongest kids in Little League, Verrier was typecast as a pitcher because he threw harder than anyone else. When someone else took the mound, he usually anchored the defense at shortstop or center field.

In eighth grade, Verrier took on the affectionately labeled tools of ignorance.

“My dad and I figured that would be the best way to get where I wanted to go,” he explained. “There aren’t a lot of good catchers out there who can hit.”

The summer after his eighth-grade season, Verrier, then 14, was starting behind the plate for a Bessey Motors American Legion squad that showcased multiple post-graduates from Oxford Hills’ 2005 Class A championship team.

One year later, with a full season as Oxford Hills’ starting catcher under his belt, he hit a mammoth home run out of St. Joe’s Mahaney Diamond in the Legion state tournament.

Word was out. Verrier committed to Maine as a junior, sticking with the state university in an era that has seen many other blue-chip recruits venture south or even straight to the minor leagues.

“I’m from Maine, of course, so it‘s always been a goal,” Verrier said. “They laid it all out for me and it seemed like a pretty good fit for me. My family, my friends and my coaches can come watch me play. I also think it might be the easiest way to get to the NCAAs and maybe even the College World Series rather than having to fight through a big conference.”

Even in a cold-weather state with a diminished number of youths pursuing the sport, Verrier believes that Maine baseball players have a distinct advantage over their Texas and Florida counterparts in at least one area.

“I played in California, and I just think those kids are outside more. Players out there might be more polished in the field and ready to go in that way,” he said. “But I think you see kids from Maine that are just as good hitters, if not better, because we spend all year long in cages.”

Oxford Hills’ opponents have seen the proof.

Given a rare chance to swing at pitches down the middle, Verrier went 2-for-3 with a double and three RBIs in the Vikings’ 10-3 regional championship victory over Brewer.

Verrier’s batting average is approaching .500, and his on-base percentage is off the charts. He didn’t lead the team in home runs or RBIs. Those distinctions belonged to Cody Hadley, primarily because Hadley protects Verrier in the lineup as cleanup hitter.

If there were a category that combined intentional walks, unintentional walks and times getting plunked in the ribs or elbows, Verrier might lead the state by a 3-to-1 margin.

“He’s been patient,” Oxford Hills coach Shane Slicer said. “Cody had 29 RBIs in the regular season, so teams had to start pitching to Matt. They had 54 combined. Our 9-1-2 guys (Kyle Farrar, Nate Dubois and Andrew Kennison), their on-base percentage has been outstanding. And how do you not pitch to a guy when the bases are loaded?”

Equally valuable is Verrier’s presence in handling a pitching staff led by Erik Henderson and D.J. Croy.

“A lot of being a good catcher is getting your pitchers to trust you,” Verrier said. “They have to know that if they throw an 0-2 curve ball in the dirt, you’re going to be there to block it.

“You have to want to get to get better and be willing to put in the work on your own,” he added. “It’s not an easy job.”

In Verrier’s case, a year-round challenge. One with rewards that are still to be determined.

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