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Tournaments  | Story  | 3/6/2022

P27 Holds Off GPA For Academies Title

Blake Dowson     
Photo: P27 Academy Red (Perfect Game)
Showdown-Academies Scout Notes: Days 1-2

HOOVER, Ala. -- P27 Academy Red, like they made a habit of doing all tournament long, jumped out to an early lead against Georgia Premier Academy in the championship game of the PG High School Showdown-Academies and didn’t look back, scoring three runs in the first inning and winning by a 8-5 final.
 
Following a pair of walks and a single from Jack Reynolds, six-hole hitter Ethan Garner smoked a single past GPA’s shortstop, the ball past him before he even had time to react. It was 2-0 just like that.
 
Garner and what it technically the bottom half of P27’s lineup did a lot of heavy lifting during the championship game. Guys hitting in the 6, 7, 8, and 10 spots in the order all registered base knocks in the contest.
 
“Depth is the reason you win games,” P27 Head Coach Corey Warner said. “Depth is the reason we train so hard. I would say we could switch our 10-hole guy into the 1-hole, 8-hole guy into the 4-hole any day of the week. It’s just how you match up. Our kids can play.”
 
P27 showed the requisite depth to win a tournament like this one. Six games in three days will prove to everyone whether you have enough production in your lineup and a big enough stable of arms to get through that grind.
 
It’s a lot to ask of a program, even at full strength. P27 upped the difficulty at the Showdown, splitting their group in half to field two teams.
 
The other squad, P27 Academy Navy, made it to the quarterfinals of the championship bracket. Together, the two squads claimed the top-two overall seeds in the tournament.
 
The Navy squad got bounced by the Georgia Premier group that finished as runners-up, so there was some revenge involved in the title game, too.
 
The impressive showing made Warner happy.
 
“I’m proud,” Warner said. “We had a lot of fun. We were able to split the group up and still have two competitive groups, and the kids played well. That’s a good team we just played, we see them all the time, and those kids can play. They have some kids who can really swing the bat.”
 
Anthony Sodano got the ball to start the championship game for P27 and gave his team a solid four innings. Sodano struck out two and gave up three hits, and allowed just one run while giving his lineup an opportunity to take and then stretch the lead.
 
By the time the call to the bullpen came, P27 had a 6-1 lead.
 
Walks again got the third inning cooking for P27, and an RBI ground out from Garner pushed P27’s run total to three. A Reynolds double in the bottom of the fourth scored two more and gave the team some breathing room.
 
It was at that point that Warner called on the bullpen, bringing in one of the most electric arms the tournament saw all week.
 
Chase Horst, a lefty who hails from Pennsylvania, came in throwing low-90s fastballs, touching 95 a few times, paired it with a sweeping slider, and showed a few changeups as well. It was Horst’s first appearance of the tournament.
 
Again, this tournament showcases depth, especially on the final day of action. To have the luxury of waiting until your third winner-take-all game to run out an arm like Horst really says something.
 
Other guys stepping up and winning games leading up to the big one allowed it to happen, which Warner was quick to point out.
 
“Arms win. Arms are everything,” he said. “We were able to keep [Horst] on the back end, we were able to have some guys on the front end so that we were able to save Chase for something like this. That’s what it comes down to. We were able to bring an arm out of the bullpen in the sixth that was 93-95 [mph], it’s electric. It’s hard to beat that.”
 
Horst threw the fifth and sixth innings, striking out four in the process. A three-run rally from Georgia Premier in the seventh inning brought the score to 8-5, and the tying run was on base by the end, but the surge fell just short.
 
These two programs will see each other again, like Warner said. But for now, bragging rights go to P27.
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