Seven years ago, Alex Frederick won the Golden Arm award at Cooperstown Dreams Park during a Little League tournament and summer camp, which earned him a trophy and extensive mention in an article in The Sun.

At 10 years old, Frederick was armed with an astonishing amount of success for someone that age, and a quiet confidence that his Cooperstown experience was just the beginning of his baseball accomplishments.

“I knew baseball could take me far if I stuck with it and it has,” Frederick said.

Yesterday, Frederick’s premonition of later baseball success came true when the Dulaney shortstop signed a National Letter of Intent to attend the University of North Carolina at Greensboro next year.

As a junior for Dulaney, Frederick batted .403 with 19 RBI, while committing just one error in 88 opportunities.

But despite his impressive statistical campaign for the Lions, Frederick’s recruitment was surprisingly slow heading into last summer.

All that changed in July when he made the Mid-Atlantic Red Sox travel baseball team. The Red Sox, comprised of players from five different states, traveled up and down the East Coast between mid-August and October playing in weekend showcases. Teams would show up and play double-headers on Saturday and Sunday with an audience of college coaches looking to fill their rosters.

“Basically you go to a whole bunch of different colleges,” Frederick said. “We went to James Madison, Mount Saint Mary’s, UNC-Charlotte, UVa., East Carolina. A whole bunch of coaches from the surrounding sites will go to that showcase. It’s an easy way to see a lot of players at one time.”

The first set of coaches to see Frederick and be impressed enough to start heavily recruiting him were from Radford University. That was in late August. Later that fall, High Point got involved, and significantly piqued Frederick’s interest.

At a showcase in September at UNC-Charlotte, the High Point coaches were on hand for arguably Frederick’s best performance of the season.

“That particular showcase I was 5-for-7 with three or four doubles and I think seven RBIs on the first day,” Frederick said. “I had a big second day. I got the save against the North Carolina Dirtbags and we beat them again in the second game.”

His hitting and standout defense caught the eyes of the UNCG assistant coach Chris Roberts, who made it a point to seek out Frederick’s parents in the stands and invite the family to visit the Greensboro campus. The High Point coaches extended the same invitation.

That day, the family took brief tours of both campuses in what Frederick called “a preview before the real visits.”

One Friday in mid-October, the family again flew down to North Carolina and visited both campuses.

Frederick started at Greensboro, attending a business class with some baseball players, then going on a tour of the school with an assistant coach and watching the team practice. He followed that up with a visit to High Point. He enjoyed both, as did his parents, but if they had a preference between the two schools, Frederick couldn’t tell.

“Those schools are actually really, really different,” Frederick said. “High Point has like 3,000 [students] and UNC-Greensboro has like 15,000. They are really, really different schools and it comes down to the kind of person you are. I couldn’t really tell what [my family] liked better, but in the end it was all up to me.”

With the decision in his hands, Frederick went with UNCG, the school with the bigger student body, impressive baseball facilities, a winning tradition and a head coach in Mike Gaski who is the president of USA Baseball.

The Spartans expect Frederick to come to Greensboro as a freshman and compete for the starting shortstop position immediately. According to Frederick, he and a sophomore will do battle, with the runner-up likely taking over second base.

For now, Frederick’s eager to continue on that path of baseball success, which started in Cooperstown seven years ago, and will lead him to Greensboro in 2008.

“I’m really excited because it’s a top-notch DI program,” Frederick said. “It’s everything I’m looking for in a school and a coach. I know some of my friends are stressed out about school and I’m all set. So I can’t really complain. ... I guess it just all came together.”

From The Sun archives: Big league -- Alex Frederick and the Cockeysville Travel A team takes on Cooperstown

Click here for The Sun's list of area high school players' college commitments.