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Tournaments  | Story  | 7/24/2022

5 Star Finishes On Top at 16u WWBA

Blake Dowson     
Photo: 5 Star National 16u Black (Perfect Game)
MARIETTA, Ga. -- It took a while, but by the end of the championship game of the 16u WWBA National Championship, 5 Star National 16u Black left no doubt as to who the deserved to be crowned champions.

Staring at a 1-0 deficit heading into the sixth inning against Power Baseball 2024 Marucci, 5 Star hung five runs on the scoreboard in the sixth and four more in the seventh to pull away, winning by a 9-2 final.



5 Star’s Jose Garcia and Tanner Kaler hung tough on the mound all game long, putting up enough zeros to keep their lineup in it until the bats finally came alive late. Garcia got the ball to start, going four inning and giving up just two hits, one unearned run in the second inning, and struck out three. Kaler was put in charge of the final three innings and earned the win, striking out four in his three frames.

Contributions came from everywhere in the 5 Star lineup once the hits started coming. Cooper McMullen, Hunter Carns, and James Nunnallee all recorded two-hit games from the one-, two-, and three-hole in the lineup, respectively. Tristan Bittle and Daniel Hernandez both picked up multi-hit games from the six- and seven-hole, too.

It was Carns’ leadoff triple in the top of the sixth inning that ignited things for 5 Star. He would finish off the final 90 feet thanks to a sac fly from Myles Bailey, tying the game at 1-1. Hernandez got plunked with the bases loaded later in the inning to pick up the go-ahead bruise, Nathan Hayworth contributed an RBI groundout one pitch later, and bookending the inning was Carns yet again, who singled to right field to bring in Hernandez and push the score to 5-1.

5 Star turned up the pressure even more in the seventh, with Nunnallee, Bailey, BJ Gibson, and McMullen all notching singles in the inning, leading to the four insurance runs that moved the lead to 9-2, the eventual final once Kaler pieced together the final three outs in the bottom of the inning.

5 Star, the No. 9 nationally ranked team in the country at the 16u level, came in as one of the teams to look out for at the 16u WWBA. However, after dropping their second game of pool play to the Api Cavaliers, 5 Star was given the No. 118 seed heading into bracket play and had to work their way through a play-in contest to even get into the bracket.

With the tournament win, 5 Star moves their record to 34-7-2 overall at Perfect Game events this season.

Power Baseball’s Thomas Bly was named the MVP of the tournament, after hitting .519 over his team’s 11-game slate, with 14 hits overall, 11 runs scored, and an incredible 18 driven in.

5 Star’s Truitt Manuel was given MV-Pitcher honors for the work he did on the mound in the first round of the playoffs against the Indiana Bulls, tossing 6 1/3 innings, striking out seven, and not allowing a run and just three hits.
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