Gorman wins Legion title

By Ray Brewer (contact)

Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008 | 10:45 a.m.

Originally posted at 8:38 a.m. Wednesday

Bishop Gorman’s baseball team was ranked in the Top 10 of several national polls this past spring as it captured a third straight high school state title.

While it’s tough to gauge one school against others from a different state, it looks like the pollsters were right about the Summerlin Catholic school.

Gorman’s American Legion affiliate, the Southern Nevada Titans, closed the summer on a 21-game winning streak, including a 5-1 triumph against Pasco, Wash., today in the championship game of the American Legion World Series at Keeter Stadium in Shelby, N.C.

The Titans (75-7-1) scored five early runs and starter Stephen Manthei only gave up five hits in a nine-inning complete game.

It was the perfect ending to a memorable summer, but more importantly, says coach Chris Sheff, a confirmation of the program’s claim that it is one of the best in the nation.

Nevada affiliates have competed in Legion the past 84 years and the Titans became the first to capture the series. They bested 6,000 teams nationally.

“I would say this is the best achievement our program has had,” Sheff said. “We are talking No. 1 out of 6,000 teams.”

Legion teams in most parts of the country take the top players from multiple high schools to form one team per town. In Las Vegas, however, most high schools have an affiliate. Also, Gorman’s team featured three high school graduates when most teams at the series were loaded with athletes hovering at the 19-year-old age limit.

“We were the youngest team there by far,” Sheff said.

The title game was supposed to take place a day earlier, but was rained out. Rain returned by the seventh inning and the infield grass was soggy the entire game.

That played into Manthei’s strategy as he recorded several groundball outs in an 87-pitch effort. Pasco’s run came in the ninth inning.

“I was just throwing strikes and getting ahead in the count,” Manthei said. “If they hit the ball into the ground it just stopped. We got on them early and coasted.”

Gorman went undefeated in five series games, but each win was hard-fought. The Titans gave up six runs in the first inning Sunday against Sumter, S.C., before rallying for an 11-9 victory — their third two-run victory in the series. Jeff Malm, who played for the United States under-18 team this summer, keyed the comeback against Sumter with a home run and four RBIs. Malm also struck out the side in the ninth for his third tournament save.

“Being able to call yourself a national champion is one of the greatest things in baseball,” Malm said. “This is pretty significant.”

Gorman also played in the 2006 series, but was eliminated after losing its first two games. It has won three straight state Legion titles.