EMERSON, Ga. – The 643 DP Cougars beat the PYB Elite 2022 by a score of 10-2 to win the 2017 13u PG Summer Showdown protected by G-Form.

Two straight hits led off the bottom of the first for the Cougars, who had runners on the corners for the three-hole hitter Parker Lester. The right fielder tripled on a line drive to center field, driving in the first two runs of the ball game. Lester would later take home on a steal of second by Andruw Jones. Wyatt Strahl would single home Jones to push the early lead to 4-0.

PYB Elite would respond with two runs of their own in the top of the second inning, with the second run coming via a Joseph Ciaccio two out RBI single to cut 643’s lead in half. They would shut down the Cougars in the bottom of the second, setting them down 1-2-3.

The game would be quiet from there, with neither team scoring a run from the bottom of the second inning through the bottom of the fourth. The Cougars would threaten in the top of the fifth inning, with bases loaded and one out with Jones up. He would clear the bases with a triple to open the game up 7-2 and would later score the eighth run on a sac fly by William Cawthon, who was robbed of extra bases on a diving play by Will Purvis.

Later, in the sixth inning, Hayden Smith would hit a walkoff single to secure the championship for the Cougars.

Each team received a bypass right into the semifinal rounds, with the Cougars earning the No. 1 seed, while PYB Elite finished pool play as the No. 2 seed.

PYB Elite came into the game outscoring opponents 48-21, with 38 of those runs coming in their last four games. Colton Bradley was a key contributor to the offense, finishing the weekend 9-for-19 with a double, triple, home run and 12 RBIs. In the semifinal round, PYB knocked off the 643 DP Tigers 8-3 to earn them a spot in the championship.

A perfect 7-0 would be the final record for the Cougars, who crushed the ball at the plate, scoring 77 runs over those seven games. Their best offensive game included a 19-7 win over the HardKnox Marlins 13u in their first game of pool play. Head coach Ryan Sterling’s 16u team won the 16u WWBA Qualifier earlier in the week, and he noticed the comparable efforts offensively between the teams.

“Very similar to my older guys. We played in a 14u event with wood bat a couple of weeks ago, and going from the wood bats to the drop fives, it’s such an advantage,” Sterling said. “Those drop fives have an endless amount of power, and our guys just trust their hands with them extremely well. So that’s really what it is, going back to the drop fives, that’s where the explosion came from.”

The championship game resulted in the Cougars continuing to swing hot bats. Six different players collected RBIs, while seven hitters picked up at least one hit. Hayden Smith, Parker Lester and Jones were three of the key run producers in the game. Smith went 2-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored out of the leadoff spot, while Lester went 1-for-2 with two RBIs. Jones went 1-for-2 with three RBIs and would be the recipient of the MV-Player award. He finished the weekend hitting .733 (11-for-15) with one double, four triples, 11 RBIs and two stolen bases.

“It’s pretty good considering that PG is a great organization,” Jones said on winning the award. “[My approach was] just try to get the ball back up the middle and into right field.”

Champ Davis was given the task of quieting the bats of PYB, and he did just that, scattering six hits and one earned run over five innings. Lester would come into the game to close it out, striking out a batter in the process. The team surrendered only 23 runs in the tournament, and Sterling attributed the staff’s success to attacking the strike zone.

“We threw a ton of strikes, and with 13u baseball, that is the name of the game,” Sterling said. “If you can throw strikes, 13-year-old kids will eventually get themselves out, and I think that the reason we were able to, heck I had three pitchers that didn’t even pitch this week, is because we were able to keep our pitch counts down by just throwing strikes and making the other team get themselves out.”

Sterling said that the team was able to live up to what he knows they can do, both at the plate and on the mound.

“My team showed themselves how good they could be,” Sterling said. “They didn’t show me anything, I’ve known how good they can be. It’s more or less me trying to get them so see it. They showed me basically what I know they’ve had in them all year, and they just finally showed themselves.”

Going off of that, Sterling said that this championship win meant a lot to the team, who can use it as a building block moving forward.

“It’s just huge for this group,” Sterling said. “This group has loads and loads of talent and just for their confidence level it’s huge, especially leading into that PG World Series starting on Sunday. There’s some serious competition in that, so this is a good motivator and confidence builder going into that week.”

The MV-Pitcher of the tournament was PYB Elite’s Beau Bryans, who threw 7 1/3 innings, giving up one earned run, striking out six.


2017 13u PG Summer Showdown runner-up: PYB Elite 2022



2017 13u PG Summer Showdown MVP: Andruw Jones



2017 13u PG Summer Showdown MV-Pitcher: Beau Bryans