EMERSON, Ga. – The 14u Perfect Game World Series is now in its final rounds of the playoffs, as the quarterfinal matchups were played Sunday morning at the LakePoint complex to decide the final four. Left in the playoffs were some familiar faces from the 15u WWBA National Championship, with the Houston Banditos, Phenom Signature, and the East Cobb Astros all gunning for a 14u title.

Aside from the regular contenders, there were some teams chasing the crown that are relatively unknown. Everyone knows about the Houston Bandtios, but it was a different Banditos team making headlines today, as the Team MVP Banditos squared off against the No. 1 seed Lamorinda Titans for a spot in the semifinals.

With this tournament being much smaller than the WWBA National Championships that resided over the field at LakePoint for over a month, these teams are fresh and loaded with arms to hopefully last them all the way to the championship. That showed on Sunday with the pitching that was displayed by both teams. There were a good amount of runs in this game, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that these starting pitchers weren’t on their A game today. These teams were just extremely hot at the plate, especially the Banditos, who were consistently driving the ball to deep left-center.

Heading into the game the Team MVP Banditos were 3-1 as compared to the Titans’ perfect 4-0 record, but the Banditos were fully confident they could take down this talented team from Santa Ynez, Cafif., regardless of seeding. In fact, despite the Titans’ better record, the Banditos had outscored the Titans 27-21. The difference in power on offense became quite apparent very early in the game.

In the top of the first inning the Titans’ starting pitcher, Javier Felix, had a duel with the Banditos’ leadoff batter, Luis Tuero, which resulted in a home run that sailed over right field fence for the first run of the game. That would not be all that we would be hearing from Tuero, and just by watching him as he crossed home plate in this first inning you could tell there was a look of ferocity and undeniable determination in his eyes.

The Banditos would score another in the first inning off of a sac fly, but Felix was not rattled in the least. He racked up five strikeouts through his first two innings, and looked like he was going to settle in before the Banditos came out swinging in third inning. Felix’s arm angle, low-80s fastball, and dirty curveball make him pretty tough to hit, but the Banditos' bats were simply too hot on this day.

On the other side of things, the Banditos’ starter, Jacob Shaver, was dealing. He was inducing groundballs and foul pop outs and showed amazing poise throughout the entire start. Shaver really let his defense work, which allowed for his offense to stay hot in between innings. The Banditos would come back in the top of fifth inning and put this game out of reach. Four more runs of offense later, and the score was now 9-1, with the run rule taking effect.

Shaver would come out the very next inning and make it official, as he would retire the next side of Titan batters to finish the game by the same score, 9-1. He was fantastic through five innings, and finished the day with only two hits allowed and no earned runs. Not only did Shaver’s performance impact today’s game, but impacts the next possible games as well. The Banditos needed him to go the distance because it keeps the other arms on their team fresh for the rest of the playoffs, and now that he has, they are locked and loaded for tomorrow’s semifinal game against a talented Phenom Signature squad.

“When you have a team like this, that’s as loaded with the bat as we are, all I have to do is go in and throw strikes,” said Shaver after the game. “If I just hit my spots and throw strikes, I know they’re going to back me up with defense and hitting. I don’t have to worry about too much out there. My curveball was big for me today, because when I get behind or ahead, I can trust that pitch whenever to keep them off balance.”

This Team MVP Banditos team is a force to be reckoned with due to their tenacity and ability to play as a unit. They have a lot of heart and every player on their roster feels that a 14u PG World Series title is well within their grasp.

“We play with a lot of heart; when we get down, we don’t let it get to us and we try to keep going no matter what,” Shaver added. “We keep fighting until the end, because we don’t like losing at all. We don’t expect to ever lose and we try to win every game we play, and it doesn’t matter who the opponent is.”

For as great as Shaver was on the mound, shortstop Luis Tuero arguably was even more more impressive. He made plays all day on defense, but what he did with the bat was quite special. As noted, he started the game off with a home run, added another run-producing base hit later in the game and also came around to score two more times. Tuero accounted for more than half of the Banditos’ offense on Sunday, and his approach at the plate was superb.

After his first at-bat Tuero did not try to do too much at the plate like a lot of youngsters can do after hitting a bomb; he just looked for a pitch in the zone, put it on the ground and used his wheels to get on base. With a pair of infield hits Tuero was a perfect 3-for-3 on the day.

“We knew that team was really good because they had beaten us two years ago, and coming into this game, they were the one-seed,” Tuero said. “They threw one of their horses at us and we just did what we could do. I was looking for my pitch, and I knew their pitcher had a good slider so I was just looking for a fastball early in the count. I just wanted to be aggressive.

“We have a really good chance to win this thing. We have our horses left to pitch, and if we play like today, (with) hustle and focus, we will be okay.”

The Team MVP Banditos have a next-man-up kind of mentality, and are constantly staying positive no matter what the circumstance is. They understand that baseball is a game of failure and sometimes you’re not going to have your best game, but they know that someone else always has to step up.

That’s what Head Coach Cesar Temes thinks they have been doing this week, and he feels that everybody has filled their role and came up big when they were called on. Coach Temes hopes that can continue in tomorrow’s semifinal round.

“We’re playing as a team. Believe it or not, some guys have been hot, some guys haven’t been, and some days will be good and others will be bad; it’s going to rotate like that and I try to explain that to them,” Coach Temes said. “They deal with the failure and move on, and every day it has been someone else stepping up. It’s a talented team, and we stick together and don’t break down. If I stay cool, then they stay cool, and I just tried to stay relaxed and treat this game as another baseball game, even though the Titans were the one-seed.

“We were loose and relaxed, and as soon as the game started, we jumped on them. With Jacob going the whole game today, our pitching has been re-vamped and will be ready for a big day tomorrow.”