LITTLE LEAGUE NORTHWEST REGIONALS: Little league, bigger dreams ... Coeur d'Alene 12U team sets sights on regionals, bid to Williamsport.

By JASON ELLIOTT

Sports writer

The league might be little, but the dreams of the 12 boys from Coeur d’Alene heading to San Bernardino are about as high as you can imagine.

As Coeur d’Alene 12U Little League All-Star coach Dave Everson describes, it comes down to a group of competitors.

“We’ve got 12 kids that can put the ball in play,” Everson said. “There’s not one kid that doesn’t compete in each at-bat. And that’s tough on any pitcher. They’re still 12-year old kids, but they’ve got to come out and beat 12 kids that can really put the bat on the ball.”

Coeur d’Alene is back at the Northwest Regional tournament in San Bernardino for the first time since 2019, when they fell in the championship game bidding for back-to-back appearances in the Little League World Series after qualifying in 2018.

“It’s been a really fun experience,” outfielder and catcher Clay Larwin said. “I’m just really excited to keep playing baseball. It’s my life and I’d rather do that than anything else. I really just enjoy playing this game with my friends, waking up, driving a little bit and going to play a game.”

“I’m friends with every last one of these guys,” Cooper Fordham said. “Even at practices, just getting to hang out with them and play the game I love with them is incredible.”

Coeur d’Alene opens the tournament on Saturday at 9 a.m. against Dimond-West Little League from Anchorage, Alaska. The game will be shown on ESPN+.

Not that the players are thinking about the national audience.

“The cameras are there to make sure everyone else can watch us,” said Fordham, a catcher/infielder. “They’re not there for my sake.”

This year, coaches must fill their batting order with all 12 players slotted to hit in order, whereas in previous years, coaches had to rotate players into the lineup so that every player got an at-bat in the game.

“It changes things a lot and really changes what you’d consider a traditional baseball lineup,” Everson said. “We spread out power throughout our entire lineup and contact hitters throughout the lineup. And we’ve got guys to put them in. You can’t do that with a 9-person lineup anymore, so you’ve got to have kids that can hit the ball.”

And sometimes, it means having a player hit somewhere they normally don’t during the season.

“We talked to our boys all the time,” Everson said. “All season long, these boys hit in the top part of their lineup and then, on this team, they’ve got to adjust. We talk to them about where they’re hitting, why they’re there in those spots. And I feel good about that and how they’ve performed.”

In last year’s 11U tournament, the Coeur d’Alene team squad fell to North Boise in the championship series. A year later, and wiser, the Coeur d’Alene squad swept North Boise to advance to regionals.

“We knew coming into this year that our corner (infelders) couldn’t be slow, because they were going to bunt,” Fordham said. “And they’re a fast team. We knew they couldn’t get hot. After last year, we knew they could get a couple of hits and rally, but we just found a way to get it done this year.”

“We work with these kids all year long, and we talk about those moments,” Everson said. “We’ve been talking about the 11U team from Boise since last year. Why did we fall short? And to keep that chip on their shoulder. We knew they’d be good, and they are good, and our goal was to be better, and they did it.”

Blake Anderson is an outfielder for the 12U team.

I’m looking forward to playing against the best players,” Anderson said. “I just want to go down and advance to Williamsport.”

This year, instead of teams staying in barracks near the stadium and other teams, they’ll be staying in hotels due to space issues on the campus of Al Houghton Stadium in San Bernardino.

“It’s usually just about the baseball games,” Anderson said. “But it’s going to be the summer of a lifetime. I’m looking forward to just having the four guys in each room, and really bonding as a team with the group in that way.”

The championship game is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 10 at 6 p.m. on ESPN.

“I’d like to be able to go down there and compete,” Larwin said. “Hopefully we’ll make it to the championship. If everyone takes care of themselves and is responsible, we’ll do good. I knew a couple of those kids that went to Williamsport. Thinking about that is right in front of me, and I can do that too, really motivates me.”

“It’s going to be a different environment for these boys,” Everson said. “We’re staying in a hotel as a team, without their parents, which is going to be new for them. I want them to be prepared to play baseball. I’m sure it’s going to be a once in a lifetime experience. But it’s still just baseball and I’m going to remind them of that every day.”