By Barry Scanlon, Athletic Business

LOWELL -- Adam Keenan was where he loved to be -- on a baseball field, playing a game he loved.

But that doesn't make his shocking death Monday any less painful for those who grew to love the 20-year-old Keenan, a former Lowell High baseball star who coaches and friends say was a walking ray of sunshine.

"It's like a nightmare," his father, Mike, said. "Adam was a great kid, a great son."

Keenan, who had just completed his sophomore year at UMass Lowell, was in Rochester, N.H., for his first practice as a member of the Seacoast Mavericks, a Futures Collegiate Baseball League team.

According to UML head coach Ken Harring, Monday's practice was over and the team's general manager was talking to players, who were positioned on one knee, when Keenan collapsed and went into cardiac arrest at Spaulding High School.