Barton’s Gorman switches hats for Little League postseason

Two Wilson City Little League all-star teams will have the homefield advantage this weekend with North Carolina Little League Baseball Ages 7-8 and Ages 8-9 state championship tournaments being played at Gillette Baseball Complex.

The Ages 7-8 tournament with 12 teams in three pools starts Friday with six games and continues through Saturday with each team playing four games total. The single-elimination tournament will play its first two rounds Sunday with the championship game set for Monday at 6:05 p.m. at Southern Bank Stadium.

The Ages 8-9 tournament, with just eight teams, will start Saturday morning and continue through Thursday’s championship game or games.

The Ages 7-8 group, the only one of five Wilson City Little League postseason all-star teams to win a District 6 title, might even have a little more of advantage in the dugout as well. Keith Gorman, head coach at NCAA Division II Barton College, is spending some of his summer break as head coach of the WCLL Ages 7-8 team for which his son, Beau, plays.

Gorman, who obviously didn’t have time to coach a WCLL team this spring, had some experience coaching Beau’s team in the WCLL fall league last year, opening the door.

Gorman, who pretty much coaches the Bulldogs from September to May, said that he reached out to WCLL director Troy Blaser that he was available if needed for the district and state playoffs.

“I did coach my son’s team in the fall, but really, I had some of my Barton players coaching that, because I couldn’t always be there,” Gorman said. “So, I don’t know if that maybe gave me an in, but, yeah, it’s been a blast, and I’m very thankful I get to coach my son and might be one of the last opportunities I get to do that, which is sad to think about. Unless he can turn himself into a college baseball player someday, and if I’m still in it.”

Gorman is assisted by fellow dads Michael Clark, Adam Harris and Nick Parker. The Barton coach allowed there are some major differences in the approach to Little League and collegiate baseball, but fundamentals are the same.

“I think one of the things that we’ve done so well, and even through the district tournament, is we played very good defense, and even when we’ve had some poor defensive plays or innings, we seem to have had a short memory and recovered from that,” he said. “So I think if we can continue to play defense, we’re going to give ourselves a chance, you know, against anybody. And I know there’s some good teams coming in, and I don’t know much about Little League and in North Carolina, but from what I hear, there are very, very good teams all around.”

Blaser assured that WCLL is extremely lucky to have a coach like Gorman, who has led Barton to more than 100 victories in five seasons. Gorman’s Cumberland County (N.J.) College team won the 2019 NJCAA Division III national championship.

One of Gorman’s predecessors at Barton, Josh Simmons, has been helping coach his son C.J.’s WCLL teams for the past few years, including the Ages 10-12 all-state this summer. But unlike Gorman, Simmons has not been the active Barton coach while involved with Little League.

“As they looked in the districts, they’ve got a pretty good shot, I would think, if history says anything,” Blaser said. “The way they play, the way he’s got them defensively positioned, and stuff that he’s used to doing on a daily basis for D-II college, he’s kind of implementing, I think, a little bit into the 7-8s and it’s pretty awesome to see.”

It’s been a great experience for Gorman, who has been pretty busy this summer with his kids’ athletic endeavors. He and his wife, Emily, have two older daughters, Leanna and Ellee, who are active in sports. In fact, all three young Gormans played in the recent Larry Pittman Memorial Wilson County Junior Golf Championship in June with Ellee winning her age group and Beau tying Bennett Parker, one of his all-star teammates now, for first place in their age group.

But for now, it’s just more baseball — at least for the next few days.

“It’s been a really positive thing for me and a refreshing thing,” said Keith Gorman. “And I really am going to bring some things back to my college team, just from how I handle some of the players standpoint. So it’s been really refreshing. And I gotta tell you, I did not expect to have as much fun as I’m having now.”

The blessings flow both ways with the Little Leaguers getting some invaluable experience playing for top-flight college baseball coach.

“I think, by me being out there, I might help them a little bit for their future practices and organization and how to handle the kids,” he said. “So I think it’s been a positive thing for at least this age group.”

The Ages 7-8 roster is Bennett Parker, Will Clark, Manning Hare, Beau Gorman, Preston Staton, Colt Pierce, Bennett Lee, Maxton Warren, Cameron Parker, Max Harris, Finn Mariani and Nash Salter.

The WCLL Ages 8-9 did not win the District 6 title, in fact finished third but because not all districts send other age-group teams to the state tournament, Wilson got one of the berths.

The team, coached by Brian Powell with assistants Dustin Kintzele and Brent Caudle, does have one advantage this weekend it did not at the District 6 tournament. Two players who moved up to the WCLL Ages 8-10 team, John Aycock and Jacob Holland, are eligible to play for their native age group now that the 8-10s are done, having lost in district play.

The other WCLL players are Kollin Sadler, Brady Melton, Ayden Driver, Owen Caudle, Logan Jones, Troy Dew, Jackson Marks, Collin Wood, Henry Eisner, Colton Powell, Brendon Kintzele and George Haddock.

These are the only two WCLL teams in the state playoffs as the 9-11 and 10-12 groups were eliminated in district play last weekend. Wilson’s last Little League state championship was the 10-12s in 2019.

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