The last practice of each Montville High School baseball season, coach Phil Orbe tries to carve out a little extra time to stay on the field longer than usual, sit back and reflect.

Orbe, who attended Montville and pitched for the school’s baseball team after moving to the town when he was 15, likes to look at what has changed from his time there — the top-notch dugouts, the indoor and outdoor batting cages, the outfield fence, even the players, who he said have gotten a lot better from when he played.

“You look at it and you have a certain appreciation for it,” Orbe said.

Appreciative: That’s Orbe in a nutshell. He’s appreciative of the opportunity to coach at his alma mater, appreciative of the people who helped land him the job when he was just 24, appreciative of the kids’ lives he has an opportunity to impact and appreciative he gets to share his passion for baseball.

And as Orbe rattled off the names of various people he is grateful to work with, it’s clear that he is just as appreciative to be the fourth-year manager of the Mystic Schooners of the New England Collegiate Baseball League — a position he juggled in addition to Montville for the past two weeks while the Indians made a deep postseason run. Orbe has taken this humbled mindset to heart, now a staple of his coaching philosophy.

“I don’t take anything for granted, because I know that there’s probably a line from here to the Gold Star Bridge of people that would want this job,” he said. “So I just try to enjoy it and enjoy my time with them.”

He’s no stranger to success. Montville has won three state titles since 2006, including a runners-up conclusion to this season in the CIAC Class M final, and with the Schooners 4-2 victory over Keene Tuesday night, Mystic improved to a league-best 8-1.

But success only goes so far. Baseball only goes so far.

“I have so many of these former Schooner guys who I spend 2.5 months with, but that we stay connected,” Orbe said. “I’ll send them a text or something will happen and I’ll say ‘Hey, this happened today. It reminded me of you.’”

Orbe grew up in New London before moving to Montville, and said he’s proud to be a product of southeastern Connecticut. He’s also proud of the relationships he’s forged over the years with his kids. Not just as athletes, but as people.

Jake Meyers, a pitcher and outfielder for the Schooners from Omaha, Nebraska, didn’t know the terminological history of sandwiches. Orbe told him.

“He didn’t know what a grinder was,” Orbe said. “He called it a sub, so I had to tell him that it came from New London, Connecticut, the grinders, the people that work on the subs, or a electric boat … And he doesn’t know we have barbecue here, and there’s a good barbecue place down the road from Fitch High School.”

And as he raked the dirt surrounding home plate following Tuesday night’s game, Orbe waited to ask about one of his former Schooner’s recent graduation from Dartmouth, a conversation the coach said would have nothing to do with baseball.

Being a part of his athletes lives beyond the baseball diamond and watching them mature both on and off the field is when Orbe said he knows he’s coaching for the right reasons.

On the diamond, while Montville is “a different hat” than Mystic — Orbe said the former requires more coaching while the latter hinges more on managing personalities and getting the players to the next level — the end goal for both comes full circle. Show steady growth and development.

“He’s a great coach,” Montville first baseman TT Bowens said after his team defeated Oxford in the state tournament quarterfinals, while listing all the ways his coach had enlightened him. “Always teaches us the right things, practice we always work on things, staying within ourselves, not overthinking things.”

And as cliche as it may sound, a humbled Orbe said he has learned twice as much from all his guys.

“Just being around kids, they give you a sense of energy for an old guy like me,” he said. “They give you a sense of … just a passion for the game and I take a lot out of it. And to see these guys come from big time colleges here in this situation … is something that I totally appreciate.”