Kevin Gormley and his North Kingstown High School baseball team gave their town a beautiful gift Saturday when they completed a sweep of perennial power Bishop Hendricken for the Rhode Island Interscholastic League Division I championship.
This title was the second in as many seasons for the Skippers and was just what the town needed, coming as it did in the wake of a scathing report on the Aaron Thomas fat-testing controversy.
Thomas, the former longtime boys varsity basketball coach, is being investigated for conducting fat-testing sessions in private on NK male athletes while they were naked or partially dressed. He resigned a year ago, has not been charged and steadfastly maintains that he has not done anything improper. Still, the former schools superintendent and assistant superintendent resigned after an earlier report criticized their handling of the case.
You can’t make up what happened on Pontarelli Field at Rhode Island College. During the regular season the defending champions tied Bishop Hendricken for the best record in Division I, 16-2. In the playoffs they won an elimination game against Cranston West and erased a two-run deficit against Portsmouth in the first game of the semifinals.
In the opener of the best-of-three championship series, Evan Maloney and Braeden Perry combined to pitch a one-hitter, and Josh Lincourt drove in T.J. Gormley with a first-inning single in NK’s 1-0 victory. The drama continued in the second game Saturday at Rhode Island College. Hendricken rallied from 5-0 and 6-4 down and sent the game into extra innings on senior Brandyn Durand’s two-out, two-run homer in the bottom of the seventh, his second home run of the game.
North Kingstown scored four runs in the top of the eighth for a 10-6 lead. Hendricken scored a run and had the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth when the real drama started. Gormley made a pitching change and brought in his shortstop son, T.J., a gutsy move given that T.J. had not thrown a pitch all spring. He suffered a shoulder injury playing football last season, underwent surgery, recovered, and rehabbed during the winter and early spring.
On this day T.J. did not pitch for long. He fielded a grounder to start a 1-2-3 double play and retired the final Hendricken batter on a drive to center fielder Robbie Lamond. The Skippers were 10-7 winners and state champs again.
Then, more drama. Kevin Gormley announced his retirement as the NK coach. He had done everything he could at North Kingstown. After three runner-up finishes to Hendricken in 2005, 2009 and 2013, he had finally beaten the Hawks and their esteemed coach, Ed Holloway. His team had become just the third public school n the last 50 years to win back-to-back championships. Pilgrim won in 1972, 1973 and 1974 and Cranston West in 2006 and 2007.
Kevin Gormley had interrupted his tenure as coach for cancer treatments. He returned to coach his son for four years. Now, his work complete, he can look forward to the long drive to Orono, Maine, to watch T.J. play for the Black Bears, or the much shorter drive to the East Side of Providence to watch his daughter Meghan play the infield for the softball Bears.
The North Kingstown boys volleyball team provided the wrapping paper and ribbons for this gift by beating La Salle, 3-2, on June 11 for the state championship, its second in as many years. The baseball team finished the job and delivered the gift last weekend. I hope the town is grateful.