HAVERHILL — The Connecticut Valley North Little League all-star team is headed to Bristol, Conn., on Saturday for New England Regional play that feeds into the storied Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa. The squad opens action at 7 p.m. on Sunday against Connecticut.
The 13-player team features a dozen 12-year olds and one 11-year old from towns along the Vermont and New Hampshire border. CVN plays state competition in Vermont, however, and will represent that state after winning its recent title.
The team draws from an area that includes Haverhill, Woodsville, Ryegate, Groton, Topsham, Corinth, Orford, Fairlee, Newbury and Bradford. Most of its members were on past squads that advanced to New England regional competition at the U10 and U11 level the past two years, said coach Willy Kingsbury.
“We definitely had the goal of getting to Bristol from the start of the season,” said Kingsbury, a 1992 Oxbow High graduate and onetime Boston Red Sox farmhand who previously coached Woodsville High and with the Orleans-Essex County Kings American Legion organization. “We’ve told the kids ‘Why can’t we go to Williamsport?’ We need four wins to do it.”
Other coaches include Blue Mountain Union High principal and baseball coach Scott Blood and Kingsbury’s cousin, Jamie, and Jamie’s father, Homer. It was Willy Kingsbury’s father, Terry, who coached the last CVN team to reach regional play in 1988, with Willy’s brother, Buck, as one of the players. Before that, the only time a CVN team had won a Vermont title was in 1931, said Willy Kingsbury.
The current coaching staff has been with most of its U12 players since they were age 9. The group will sleep in bunk beds in a Bristol dorm and the players’ and coaches’ food also is paid for.
“We haven’t been that far off the past two years,” said Willy Kingsbury, whose teams have won one game and suffered one 10-run rule loss during each of its regional trips the past two years. “We have tournament experience and a lot of pride.”
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.