Unidentified Storeria species

Since we know the snake is in the Storeria genus, but do not know which species it is, I've updated your spotting to reflect this information. :-)

Since both snakes are in the same genus, they are quite similar. The belly would most certainly be the deciding factor, as TKBotting mentioned. Based on what I see in this image, I'd lean toward the red-bellied snake myself.

It got away before we could see the belly color. My daughter, who is 8, is holding the snake, so you can see that up against her small hand, it was a very small creature. We thought it was a young snake but not sure!

Was his belly red? It looks like a northern red-bellied snake.

So tiny! is it a youngling or is the size normal?