Doug Patch has been coaching Little League baseball in Bow for five years. When the opportunity arose to manage the District 1 11- and 12-year-old all-star team, he said the decision was a no-brainer.

“Most of these kids I’ve coached before in one way or another, so you know how they play going in, and you try to take advantage of their strengths and play around their weaknesses,” said Patch, noting that the players’ strengths far outweighed any weaknesses.

For the most part, it showed.

Bow finished its all-star tournament run at 2-2. Both losses came to strong opponents, said Patch.

In the opening round, the locals suffered a 5-3 setback to Nashua, a team that took its first loss in the winners bracket final.

Most recently, on July 9, they fell, 6-2, at perennial Little League power Bedford, a team that outsized them at most positions.

“I really seriously think we could have beaten Nashua in that first game, and Bedford was a good team that just outplayed us tonight,” said Patch following the postseason and season-ending loss. “On the whole, I think it was a very positive experience. We had a game or a practice almost every day, and the kids worked hard, so I’m proud of what they did.”

Indeed, after the opening-round stumble, Bow regained its footing and trampled Lamprey River, 16-8, before booting nearby Concord National from the tourney.

“You try to keep them focused on the game and what they have to do when they’re up at bat. You try to get them here early to see the field and see the kids they’re going to be playing against,” said Patch. “We had a lot of kids that contributed, when you come right down to it, and we played good strong defense in just about every game. We made a couple mistakes here and there that cost us, but I told them after the game that they still have a lot of baseball left in them.”

While 11-year-olds Dylan Bibeau and Sebastian Strong return for a final year in Little League, 12-year-olds Nick Bergen, Hunter Berke, Sean Ford, Chandler Ives, Josh LaCasse, Alex Loomis, Matt Murray, Jonathan Patch, Jake Rand and Phillip Rizzi have played their final game on the smaller diamond.

“They certainly can play at the next level … They can play in Babe Ruth, or they can play on the middle school team next year, and a lot of these kids can probably play in high school, too,” said Patch.