Starting a club baseball team from scratch in the Las Vegas Valley can be a tough endeavor with so many teams having paid their dues and made names for themselves across the baseball diamonds of Southern Nevada over the last couple of decades.
One club team that just started playing in August has already made a name for itself by winning the 11 & Under division of the Unites States Specialty Sports Association's (USSSA) 2005 Cranberry Classic, held Nov. 25-27 in Henderson -- the Las Vegas Stealth.
Manager Shawn Foley said the Stealth was designed with the committed young athlete in mind.
"We decided to form the team primarily because Little League is in the springtime and a number of the boys want to play baseball as often as they can," Foley said. "They're better players that are striving to continue to get better and learn."
The team, which began play in the USSSA fall league and had played about 20 games before the Cranberry Classic, went 5-1 in the tournament with games played at Anthem Hills Park and Burkholder Park.
In the opening two games of the Cranberry Classic at Burkholder Park, the Stealth routed the Mustangs, 15-3, before suffering its only loss in the tournament, 11-6, at the hands of the Park Bums, a team from Southern California.
The Stealth bounced back the next day, beating the Cadets, 11-3, before topping the Chino Hills USA Blaze on Nov. 26, 3-2, and Nov. 27, 13-2, at Anthem Hills Park. The victories placed the Stealth in the championship game against the Park Bums. The Stealth exacted some revenge by defeating the Park Bums, 8-4.
Chris Bradford, the team's usual starting shortstop, pitched a complete game in the title victory.
Foley said it typically takes a new team a while to come together.
"With kids this age it takes about 25 to 30 games before you can really jell," he said. "There are a lot of different factors in figuring out the lineup and what nine kids should be on the field together and how they mesh together. I've actually made a few changes since the last tournament and this one. We actually ended up playing for the championship in the fall league (USSSA) as well."
Helping Foley put his best team on the field is a group of 11 talented players -- eight of whom can pitch -- along with an equally impressive group of coaches.
Besides Bradford (batting .433 with 14 RBI), the Stealth include Jay Martz (.533, 16 RBI, 30 runs), Travis Brown (.561, 13 RBI, home run), JoJo Paratore (.429, 16 RBI), Alex Foley (.392, 15 RBI), Zach Lucas (.362, 17 RBI), Chase Pollick (.310, 10 RBI), Ryan Popowcer (.231, seven RBI), Blake White (.209, eight RBI), Justin Crow (.167, two RBI) and Drew Zwiefel (.105, three RBI).
Foley said he's dedicated to player development.
"My job is to prepare them for the next level, whether that is high school or just making next year's All-Star team in Little League," he said. "Almost all of our boys also play Little League.
"There are some of the club teams out there that don't allow their boys to play Little League, but I firmly believe that the Little League experience is a wonderful experience."
Helping Foley in coaching the team are first base coach Sam Popowcer, bench coaches Kenny White and Joseph Paratore, special assistant Jim Martz, scorekeeper Len Bradford, pitching coach David Seccombe and hitting coach Eric Nielsen. If those last two names sound familiar to you, it's because Seccombe and Nielsen starred for the UNLV baseball team where they were once teammates. Both are now playing in the minor leagues.
Seccombe, a 24-year-old right-handed pitcher who was named the Southern Nevada Player of the Year while he played for Cimarron-Memorial High School before pitching for the University of San Francisco and UNLV, is now in the Yankees organization and last played for Class A Staten Island, where he went 8-2 with a 2.04 ERA in his first year in the system.
Foley said a coach like Seccombe brings something special to the new team.
"The boys can relate to him because he's young," he said. "All of the boys, from where they were, say, Sept. 1 to where they are now, they're completely different pitchers now. Every single one of them has taken an area that was a weakness before and now they have either gotten much better, or now it's actually a strength. And that's primarily due to the work that David's done with them."
Helping the Stealth's bats come alive has been Nielsen, who was named the Mountain West Conference's Player of the Year in 2004 at UNLV after leading the conference in batting average (.459), home runs (13), RBIs (57), runs (45) and hits (56). Nielsen, now in the Toronto Blue Jays organization, became the first MWC player ever to lead the conference in batting average, homers and RBIs in the overall and conference-only statistics.
Foley said the team's hitting has improved immensely since Nielsen started showing the players the intricacies of batting.
"Eric's just been working with the boys for the last month, but in the last month of the season our hitting has really progressed, frankly to where I would have liked to have seen it rather than struggling to get going early," Foley said. "Now, we're coming out and jumping on teams early and being more aggressive."
He said the players on his team just think of Seccombe and Nielsen as two of the guys.
"Frankly, they consider those guys to almost be teammates," Foley said.
The Stealth will try to keep adding to the win column Saturday and Sunday when the team competes in the annual Martin Luther King Tournament at Desert Breeze Park, 8275 Spring Mountain Road.
Archived Editions| Advertising | Contact The Staff
