- April 25, 2024
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Dennis Thomas will lead a handpicked team from the Ormond Beach Youth Baseball and Softball Association’s Broncos Division into a statewide tournament.
BY MATT MENCARINI | SPORTS EDITOR
With one championship down, Dennis Thomas is hungry for seconds.
Having coached the Braves, of the Ormond Beach Youth Baseball and Softball Association’s Broncos Division, to a championship May 31, Thomas has now handpicked a new team to compete in states. The first meeting for the 13 players he selected for the Cal Ripken Baseball Division (Ages 4 to 12) of the Babe Ruth League, met June 3.
“We started with a team that some (players) didn’t have a lot of talent, and it’s up to the kids to work together and the coaches work together,” he said of his Braves team. “We just started the season out and started playing hard and with a lot of discipline, and we just took it to each game.”
About 25 games after Thomas said he started with a raw team, they had a championship, beating the Phillies 9-1, thanks in part to a four-RBI day from Colten Patterson, who Thomas said was one of the best pitchers, calling him a team “backbone.”
Dylan Gilmore (3-for-3 with two runs and an RBI), Jaden Reeves (1-for-2 with an RBI), Conner Dewitt and Dale Thomas, along with Patterson, made up the Braves’ major contributors. But the coach added that all contributed.
“Everything is a team effort,” Thomas said. “We had a good ball team, a real good ball team.”
Soon, Thomas’ new group of players, the ones who will play South Daytona at the end of June, will start practicing three times per week.
“I brought the team together (Monday) night to tell them about my strategy and how my coaching approach is,” Thomas said. “I’m a lot about disciple and hustle and respect, and I got that (talk) out of the way.”
The focus, despite this being a team of some of the best the Bronco Division had to offer, will be on fundamentals. The practices will be active, Thomas said, and include stations for hitting, fielding and baserunning. He wants his hitters to swing a bat about 100 times each practice.
But baseball will only be part of the focus. Thomas, a retired Daytona Beach police officer, wants to prepare his players for life after the upcoming tournament, be it high school baseball or something else.
“You teach them to win together and lose together,” he said. “It’s OK to lose, as long as you put your best foot forward.”
