EMERSON, Ga. – There may have been more precarious paths taken to achieving the No. 1-seed at a Perfect Game national championship tournament at some point in the past, but the Dallas Tigers turned in what must certainly be a top-10 – top-5? – entry at this week’s 16u Perfect Game World Series.
On paper, it’s easy to see how they came to earn the top-seed in the eight-team playoffs at amateur baseball’s preeminent 25-team 16u national tournament. The obvious factor that led to the No. 1-seed is the Tigers 4-0-0 record in pool-play, the only one of the 25 teams in the field to go unbeaten. The other seven spots were filled by teams that went 3-1-0 or, in the case of No. 5 Marucci Elite, 2-0-2.
The Tigers weren’t necessarily dominant, outscoring their four pool-play foes by a combined 21-11, but only three other teams scored more runs than they did. To put it succinctly, the Dallas Tigers out of Coppell, Tex., did everything they needed to do during the two days of play at the 16u PG World Series, and that’s really all anyone needs to know.
“Our pitchers have been throwing a lot of strikes. We’re getting ahead of hitters and have been able to get breaking ball over for strikes,” Tigers head coach Kyle Woods said before his team took the field to face the No. 8-seeded Florida Burn in a first-round game at the double-elimination tournament. “Our situational hitting has been really good. We’re getting guys on, we’re getting them over and we’re getting timely hitting, and that’s how we’ve scored our runs.”
None of the four pool-play games were cakewalks for this team of Texans – with one very talented Oklahoman added for good measure – and, in fact, if not for a few of those timely hits, it could have just as easily finished 1-3 in its pool instead of 4-0.
The Tigers opened the tournament with a 6-3 win over the EvoShield Canes, but had to rally from a 3-2 deficit after four innings of play to grab the ‘W’. In game-two, they trailed the FTB Pride, 1-0, after six innings, but ignited for five runs in the top of the seventh and escaped with the 5-1 win.
They seemed more in control in game-three against the Florida Pokers, taking a 5-3 lead into the seventh inning. But the Pokers scored three in the top of the frame to grab a 6-5 lead, only to watch the Tigers rally for two in the bottom of the seventh for a 7-6 victory. The Tigers’ 3-1 win over the Home Plate Chili Dogs was the only pool-play game they led start-to-finish.
“We had two games where we had to come back and win in the last inning, and you don’t want to go into that last inning with all that pressure,” Woods said. “It’s a lot easier when you have the lead early, so if you can set the tone early you have a lot better chance of winning at the end of the game.”
That whole idea of jumping to an early lead and setting the opposition back on its heels went right out the window in the Tigers’ playoff-opener against the Burn. The Florida kids posted four runs in the top of the first and made it 5-0 with a single run in the fourth; they were then were able to hold off one of the Tigers’ trademark comebacks for a 5-4 victory. The result sent Dallas into the losers’ bracket of the double-elimination tournament, still with a chance to play into Tuesday.
This tournament is the first PG event of the summer for this particular Dallas Tigers team, although other age-group teams from the organization have fared quite well at PG tournaments over the past two or three months. This team of Tigers has played mostly locally with trips to Arizona and Oklahoma on the side, and has done quite well, according to Woods.
The core has been playing together for at least three years and some of them since they were 10 years old. It’s a 13-man roster with kids from Texas cities and towns like Dallas, Flower Mound, Frisco, Grand Prairie and many others, with just that one outlier, Elijah Davis, who comes from Shawnee, Okla.
“I’ve been playing against these guys since I was 10 (years old) and I finally got a chance to play with them this year,” Davis said. “When I was younger I would pitch against them and I always hated pitching against them because they were so good. Now that I get to play with them I can see that they’re all a bunch of characters and I love them all; it’s a great group.”
Davis is listed as 5-foot-9, 135-pound 2017 left-hander/outfielder who is ranked No. 379 nationally in his class and has committed to Kansas. There are currently four other 2017 NCAA Division-I recruits on the roster: No. 71 shortstop/right-hander Ryan Vilade (Oklahoma State); No. 91 left-hander/first baseman Russell Smith (Texas Christian); No. 261 right-hander/outfielder Zachary DeLoach (Texas A&M); and catcher/first baseman Canaan Smith (Arkansas). No. 350 right-hander/corner-infielder Joseph Montenegro is uncommitted.
Russell Smith and Vilade were both turned in excellent tournament performances through the Tigers’ first five games. Smith allowed an earned run on three hits with eight strikeouts and two walks during six sparkling innings in the win over the FTB Pride; Vilade counted three doubles among his seven hits with three RBI and three runs scored.
The Tigers take a lot of pride in the fact that they play the game intelligently and understand the importance of situational hitting and having the ability to come up with a clutch hit, as their coach was quick to point out in his earlier comments.
“We work on (the mental side) in practice as well as game-time situations,” DeLoach said. “We want to get a feel for the game and have that sense of urgency when you’re running the bases or when you’re hitting, and just knowing what to do in the right spot.”
“They’re willing to learn something every day,” Woods added. “It’s not necessarily mechanics and stuff like that, it’s more of the mental side of the game and how to prepare yourself. It’s really a great group of young men.”
After the loss to the Burn, the Tigers dropped into the loser’s bracket elimination game Monday afternoon against No. 5 Marucci Elite (2-1-2) and again had to conjure-up some of that good, old-fashioned, comeback magic.
With the score tied 3-3 heading into the bottom of the sixth – the Tigers trailed 2-1 after 4½ -- DeLoach doubled to lead-off the inning and eventually scored what proved to be the winning run on a fielding error; Dallas added another run on a fielder’s choice groundout or the 5-3 victory.
“You just go out and try to win every inning, every pitch, and you fight until the umpire tells you to stop,” Woods said. “When that happens, you step back and see who’s got the lead. It’s as simple as that, right?”
The Tigers (5-1-0) now face nemesis the Florida Burn (4-2-0) in another loser’s bracket elimination game Tuesday morning at PG Park South-LakePoint with an opportunity to advance to the semifinals where the No. 7 Dirtbags (4-1-1) await. These double-elimination affairs provide plenty of opportunities to keep right on playing.
“Obviously, with all the good teams here we knew it was going to be tough and difficult,” Woods said. “We don’t have a 20-man roster so our pitching staff has to step-up and we have to throw a lot of complete games, basically. But it doesn’t surprise me that we’re in the position we are because I know these guys and I know what they’re capable of.”
And the Dallas Tigers’ players? What are they thinking?
“These are the top 16u teams in the country,” DeLoach said. “This is the best that you can get and to come out here and just have the ability to play against these guys and compete with them is amazing.
Added Davis: “Our defense and our hitting has been working out real well. Defense is the main thing we’ve been trying to work on and it’s been solid all year. This has been a learning experience and these are definitely memories I’m going to keep forever. It’s definitely something that I’m going to tell my kids about someday when I’m older.”