Naamans wins U.S. title but falls in Senior Little League championship game

The Naamans 15- and 16-year-old all-stars won the U.S. title but couldn’t nail down a world championship Saturday in the Senior Little League World Series in Easley, South Carolina.

Pariba Little League of Willemstad, Curacao, overcame a first-inning two-run deficit to down Naamans 7-2 in a championship game nationally televised on ESPN2 Saturday night.

Georgetown’s 1981 Senior League championship remains the only World Series win by a Delaware team at any of the Little League baseball levels, which also include Majors (11-12) and Juniors (13-14) and once included Big League (17-18).

The Wilmington team, which won state and East titles, downed Southeast champ North Springs of Coral Springs (Florida) on Saturday morning 6-3 after scoring five sixth-inning runs to win the United State title. The Florida team was the defending U.S. champ.

That moved Naamans into Saturday night’s final against Curacao, which won the international division 9-5 Saturday morning over Emilia Romagna of Bologna, Italy, the Europe-Africa champ.

Naamans came out swinging and scored two runs in the top of the first inning on singles by Sam Gise and Will Davis, two walks and Adam Tommer’s sacrifice fly.

Jake Andreoli and Sully Williams then opened the Naamans second inning with singles, but outs were made on the next three batters.

Curacao then answered with four second-inning runs and tacked on three more in the fifth to pull away for the win. The Caribbean champs had seven hits.

Winning pitcher Elchero Fransisca allowed five hits and struck out four over six innings for Curacao.

Naamans was plagued by an uncharacteristic six errors in the game.

Curacao had also won the 2002 Senior Little League World Series and finished second twice since.

Naamans team members are Luke Gabrysh, Sam Gise, Jack Taylor, Mark Cruser, Joe Sheets, Adam Tommer, Christian Ceccola, Sully Williams, Matt Querey, Danny Storm, Jake Andreoli and Will Davis. The players attend high school at Salesianum, Wilmington Friends, Concord and Archmere.

The manager is Jim Gise, and coaches are Gary Karp and Jeff Fullerton.

Naamans won the District II (northern New Castle County) title without allowing a run in four games, downed Lower Sussex 8-1 for the state championship and swept through the East Regional in West Deptford (N.J.) by winning all five games to reach the World Series.

After a first-round bye, Naamans downed all three U.S. foes en route to the national title – West champ Central East Maui (Hawaii) 5-3 on Sunday, then North Springs 4-3 on Wednesday and North Springs again on Saturday. Curacao was also 3-0 entering the final.

Naamans was founded in 1957 and draws players from the U.S. 202 corridor north of Wilmington. Naamans was the first Delaware team to qualify for the Little League World Series, which is for the Majors division, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in 2003, a feat equaled by Newark National in 2013.

Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @kevintresolini.

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