Warriors Baseball Academy 2018 escapes with 16u West Memorial Day title

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Throughout its march to Monday’s championship game at the 16u PG WWBA West Memorial Day Classic, Warriors Baseball Academy (WBA) 2018 was never really headed. It had won its five previous games by an average score of about 9-2 and it just didn’t look like anyone was going to have anything for the Warriors over the long holiday weekend.

That’s why it seemed so surprising to see WBA 2018 trailing MWBA Horns Select out of Cottonwood Heights, Utah, 3-1, heading into the top of the seventh inning in Monday afternoon’s title game. But the dominance the Warriors had shown all weekend was also the reason no one was really surprised when they grabbed their bats and mounted a monumental comeback.

WBA 2018 (6-0-0) got a two-run single from Jacob Robson, a run-scoring single from Jack Silverman and a sacrifice fly from Antonio Brito as part of a six-run top-of-the-seventh, and made it hold for a 7-3 victory over the Horns Select in a game played on one of the White Sox’s six practice fields at the Camelback Ranch spring training complex.

“Man, that was an exciting game wasn’t it?” Warriors Baseball Academy 2018 head coach John Navarro asked rhetorically shortly after his players had doused him with the celebratory bucket of Gatorade. “We waited until the last inning to make a run – the bats just weren’t there for us in the beginning – but we always preach, hey, you’ve got to keep grinding … pitch after pitch after pitch, and our kids did that. We never give up … and we know that two or three runs, hey, we can make that up.”

MWBA Horns Select (5-1-0) – this group was playing in its first Perfect Game tournament this weekend – jumped to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second, scoring one run on a WBA 2018 error and another on an RBI single from Zach Larson. The Horns made it 3-0 when Ben Lisk delivered a run-scoring single in the bottom of the fourth.

The Warriors finally got on the board when Dominik Demarbiex came through with an RBI single in the top of the sixth, which merely served as a tease for the avalanche of scoring that would follow in the seventh.

WBA 2018’s Damien McElroy, Reid McLaughlin and Sasha Sneider combined to allow only one earned run on five hits, striking out seven and walking three. MWBA starter Jake Porter allowed two earned runs on six hits with four strikeouts in six innings of work.

Navarro said after the game it is against Warriors Baseball Academy policy to have an individual accept a Most Valuable Player Award and instead asked that the award be given to the entire team.

It was probably appropriate when viewed from the offensive side of things, as four WBA 2018 regulars hit .400 or better in six games over four days. Demarbiex was 9-for-19 (.474) with a pair of doubles and nine RBI; Silverman went 8-for-19 (.421) with a double, home run, nine RBI and six runs scored; McLaughlin was 5-for-10 (.500) with two doubles, six RBI and four runs, and Robson finished 6-for-15 (.400) with a double, four RBI and 10 runs.

Brito, a 2018 right-hander, was the team’s most effective pitcher over the weekend, working 9 2/3 innings in two appearances without allowing an earned run on eight hits, and striking out 11 while walking three.

The core of this WBA 2018 group is many of the same players that finished as runner-up at last year’s 14u PG WWBA Memorial Day Classic; six of these players were named to that event’s all-tournament teams. In conversations with PG on Sunday, they were adamant that they would not settle for second-place again and they followed through.

“This team has a bright future if they stick together,” Navarro said. “They work hard – they work hard in the classroom, also – so when they do get the opportunity to maybe play college ball – D-I, junior college, anywhere – (the colleges) are going to trust that if you come to my campus you’re going to make the grade and I don’t have to babysit you.”

Horns Select 2018 right-hander Andrew Zimmerman was named the Most Valuable Pitcher for his stellar work in two mound appearances. He allowed two earned runs in 11 innings (1.27 ERA), giving up 11 hits while walking four, and used a fastball that sat 82-84 mph and topped out at 85 to pile up 21 strikeouts, an average of 1.9 per inning. He was also 7-for-16 (.438) at the plate, with two doubles, a triple and four RBI.

The Horns advanced to the championship game on the strength of a 1-0 win over the Peoria, Ariz.-based AZ Athletics in a Monday morning semifinal at Camelback. Zimmerman set the pace with five, four-hit shutout innings, striking out seven and walking two. Jason James drove in the only run with an RBI pop-fly single to left in the top of the first inning. The AZ A’s left nine runners on base.

The Warriors put together base hit-after-base hit to jump to a 7-0 lead and then held on for a 7-3 win over Escalon, Calif.-based Nor Cal Young Guns 15u (4-1-0) in the morning’s other semifinal. Silverman smacked three singles, drove in two runs and scored two more; Demarbiex had two singles and two RBI; Jonathan Ornelas contributed a pair of singles and scored three runs, and Jayce Easley had three safeties, all a part of the WBA 2018’s 13-single attack.

Brito scattered five hits – including a pair of doubles – over five shutout innings, striking out seven and walking one. Zach Patterson – who doubled earlier in the game – had an RBI single, and Justin Bernard and Antonio Costa also drove in runs as part of the Young Guns’ three-run bottom of the seventh.

“This was a great experience, great baseball,” WBA 2018’s Navarro said. “Hats off to the Utah team, they played a great game. It was just one of those days that it was just our day today and I’m glad of that. The baseball gods were with us.”

BPA outlasts SY Titans in 14u WWBA West Memorial Day finale

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Two rivals from Southern California locked horns in the final four of a 14u Perfect Game tournament for the second time this calendar year, and after Monday’s result at the 14u PG WWBA West Memorial Day Classic, the scoreboard reads: BPA 2, SY Titans 0.

Lake Forest, Calif.-based BPA and the SY Titans out of Santa Ynez, Calif., battled for almost 2½ hours under a bright blue sky and a 90-degree temperature before BPA emerged with a 3-2 win after nine innings of baseball on the Dodgers side of the Camelback Ranch Complex.

BPA (5-0-0) and the SY Titans (4-1-0) are intimately familiar with each other – they’re both based in Southern California. BPA head coach Wade Jackson estimates the two teams have met 15 to 20 times over the past two or three years, including in the semifinal round of January’s 14u PG MLK Championship, a game BPA – playing under the name BPA DeMarini – won, 5-1.

“We’ve had a lot of nail-biters in the past and that’s why it’s so much fun playing them in the finals at such a big event,” Jackson said Monday. “You just know that it’s going to be a nail-biter.”

The game was tied at 2 heading into the top of the ninth inning when BPA’s Montana Diaz delivered a two-out, line-drive, run-scoring single to right field to break the deadlock. The Titans went 1-2-3 against BPA starter and winner Garrett Runyan in the bottom of the ninth.

Runyan, a 2019 right-hander, allowed two earned runs while scattering five hits over nine innings of work, striking out four and walking four; he threw 99 pitches, 62 for strikes. In two appearances over the last four days, Runyan allowed two earned runs on five hits in 12 innings (1.67 ERA) with seven strikeouts and six walks.

The Titans led 1-0 after two innings, BPA went up 2-1 after a two-run top of the sixth and SY tied it with a run of its own in the bottom of the sixth. Runyan helped himself by going 2-for-3 with a double, Jared Thomas doubled and drove in a run and Kaden Hopson delivered a single and an RBI to lead BPA’s nine-hit attack. Lucas Allen and Cooper Benson each drove in runs for the Titans.

“This is the reason we come out to these tournaments,” Jackson said. “We have a pretty good team and we won out here (in January) and they wanted to come back and go for it again. They knew going into this if we could back to the finals that they just might have a chance to win it.”

BPA’s Thomas was named the Most Valuable Player after hitting .562 (9-for-16) with a double, triple four RBI and five runs scored. Blake Morton also hit well, going 4-for-7 (.571) with a double and a team-high seven runs scored.

The Titans’ Benson was named the Most Valuable Pitcher at the tournament. The 2019 left-hander threw nine innings in two appearances, allowing only one earned run (0.78 ERA); he gave up five hits and walked one while striking out 16.

Titans Colin Barber and Brandon Lawrence stood out offensively in five games: Barber was 7-for-15 (.467) with a pair of doubles, five RBI and five runs and Lawrence was 6-for-13 (.462) with a double, three RBI and three runs.

Benson threw a complete-game five-hitter with 11 strikeouts, and doubled and drove in two runs in the Titans’ 8-1 win over Phenom Signature (4-1-0) in one of Monday’s 14u semifinal games. Diaz was 2-for-3 with a double and four RBI, Ted Burton went 2-for-2 with a double and drove in two and Hopson also had two RBI in BPA’s 9-4 win over Sandlot Baseball AZ-Densmore (3-1-1) in the other semifinal.

“They’re unselfish,” Jackson said when asked what he likes about this group. “There is not one kid who puts himself above another and they’ve played together for a long time – some of these kids have played together since they were eight years old. … Pitching-wise, I couldn’t ask for a better pitching staff than I have right now.”