"Little League Baseball" and "Little League" are registered trademarks of Little League Baseball, Inc., Williamsport, PA 17701, and are used here for identification purposes only. If you're looking for the official Little League Baseball home page, click here. Links to web sites for many individual leagues and districts can be found in the links section of this site.
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(June 2024) -- We have added historical coverage of North Carolina state tournaments to the Unpage site! Click on the left side of this page to explore past state tournaments and district champions. As part of this expansion, we are commencing our coverage of the 2024 North Carolina state tournament -- click for details. If you can provide results or pairings for North Carolina district tournaments that are not listed on this site, please contact the Unpage.
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Our coverage of the North Carolina state tournament launched on June 1, 2024. Click to contact the webmaster with any comments or questions about this site.
Little League Baseball arrived in North Carolina in 1949, when leagues were formed in Durham, Mooresville, and Raleigh. The prior year, city leaders in Durham had laid important groundwork, forming a new youth baseball organization sponsored by an array of local civic organizations. The independent league began play in early June, but a polio outbreak in the city halted play in all recreational baseball and softball leagues a fortnight later.
The next year, Durham's civic organizations helped to organize three leagues, all of which were chartered with Little League Baseball. Raleigh's local civic organizations did the same, sponsoring five leagues as part of a broader effort that created playing opportunities for nearly 1,000 children in Little League and programs for teenagers.
Both Durham and Raleigh's leagues commenced play on June 13, 1949. Exchange Club defeated Co-Op, 12-2, in the state's first game, part of an afternoon doubleheader for Durham Western Little League's opening slate. Mooresville's league also began operating that summer.
With the influx of leagues, North Carolina officials soon organized the first state tournament. Mooresville and four of Raleigh's leagues selected all-star teams, and the three Durham leagues each sent their regular season championship teams to compete in the first North Carolina state tournament. Raleigh's Jaycees Little League defeated the Raleigh Kiwanis Little League, 7-3, to win the inaugural state championship and advance to the Region 7 tournament, where they faced South Carolina's state champion for the right to advance to the Little League World Series.
Little League soon expanded throughout North Carolina, and by 1951, the state was organized into four districts that each sent winners to the state tournament. Throughout most of the 1950s, North Carolina's winner competed in the Region 5 tournament, where they faced state champions from other Southern states.
State officials established the basis for North Carolina's current district structure in 1958, starting with four districts and eventually expanding to as many as seven. Today, there are six districts in North Carolina. All district champions advance to the state tournament, and the North Carolina state champion advances to the Southeastern Region tournament, which is held each August in Warner Robins, Georgia. The Southeastern Region champion advances to the Little League World Series.
Five North Carolina leagues have advanced to the Little League World Series. A pair of Greenville Little League teams have achieved the state's best-ever finish at the Little League World Series, with Greenville Tar Heel finishing as the United States runner-up in 1998, and Greenville North State doing the same in 2017.
| North Carolina Little League World Series Qualifiers | |
| Year | League |
| 1952 | Mooresville Little League |
| 1998 | Greenville Little League - Tar Heel |
| 2002 | Southwest Forsyth Little League (Clemmons) |
| 2004 | Morganton Little League |
| 2017 | Greenville Little League - North State |
North Carolina's state tournament is, along with Connecticut's, the second-oldest state tournament in Little League Baseball. Only Pennsylvania's tournament (first held in 1948) is longer-tenured.
Click to view a timeline showing the evolution of the North Carolina Little League tournament structure.
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