EMERSON, Ga. – Tiny Faith Baptist Christian School in Brandon, Fla., has only about 100 students in grades 9 through 12, but Gene Reynolds, the school’s head baseball coach, each year manages to put together a pretty formidable roster of players.
Just how formidable? Faith Baptist has been invited to participate in the Perfect Game High School Showdown-Academies tournament in each of the first two years of the event’s existence, and after another stellar showing this weekend, it has now has two championship trophies to show for its efforts.
Faith Baptist rolled past four opponents by a combined score of 38-9 to reach Saturday’s championship game, and then showed the same precision in downing West Oaks Academy from Orlando, Fla., 5-1 to claim its second straight PG HS Showdown-Academies championship. And make no mistake, this is a big deal to these talented players from a small private school in Florida.
“Obviously, anything with Perfect Game on it, it’s a big event, so with us being a non-sanctioned school with no state championship (to play for), this is kind of what we build for – to come and play (at this event),” Reynolds said after the championship game was played at PG Park South at LakePoint. “We want to come here and compete well and hopefully have a good shot to win it.”
Faith scored single runs in the first and second innings, two in the fourth and one in the fifth to account for its scoring in the title game. Daniel Johnson had three hits including a triple, drove in a run and scored two; Alex Dominguez, Ashton Pratt and Luis Esteban each drove in a run for the winners.
Senior left-hander Luis Acuna got the start and responded with a complete-game five-hitter, allowing just one earned run while striking out seven and walking no one. West Oaks scored its only run in the top of the seventh.
There really wasn’t much Faith Baptist didn’t do well during its five games played Thursday through Saturday at LakePoint. It hit .341 as a team (42-for-123), its fleet-footed runners stole 14 bases and a .970 fielding percentage (four errors in 134 chances) is certainly nothing to find fault with.
Dominguez finished the tournament hitting .636 (7-for-11) with a double, five RBI and five runs scored in five games. Raudy Martinez was 5-for-11 (.455) with two RBI and five runs and Chavez Young was 6-for-15 (.400) with two triples, three RBI and seven runs.
“We bonded real well and a lot of guys produced,” Reynolds said of the three-day run to the title. “We brought 13 position players and we kind of interchanged all of them every game.”
The pitching staff also performed fairly well, despite an abundance of walks. Reynolds used nine pitchers and they combined to allow 10 earned runs on 16 hits over 32 innings of work (1.75 ERA), with 36 strikeouts and 34 walks.
“We have good depth in our pitching staff … and we got all the way to the championship game and had an arm that hadn’t thrown yet and he was able to throw a complete game to win it for us.”
The five victories here left Faith Baptist an eye-popping 19-1 record this season.
West Oaks finished 3-2 at the Showdown-Academies and also enjoyed some outstanding individual performances.
Jouseph Renovales hit .571 (8-for-14) with three triples, a double, two RBI and four runs; Daniel Soto was 8-for-17 with a triple, three doubles, four RBI and three runs. On the mound, senior right-hander Julio Flores and sophomore righty Juan Carlos Rios each pitched complete game shutouts, combing to allow only three hits while striking out 12 and walking six.
Three of the four schools that reached the semifinals of the Showdown-Academies arrived here from Florida and the fourth came over from Puerto Rico. SBO Puerto Rico (West Palm Beach, Fla.) faced Faith Baptist (Brandon, Fla.) in the first semifinal while West Oaks Academy (Orlando) took on VBS Elite (Vega Baja, P.R.) in the second semi.
Faith Baptist used seven hits, 10 walks, a hit batsman and an error to score 13 runs (12 earned) in a 13-3, six-inning win over SBO Puerto Rico (2-2) in the first of the two semifinal games played Saturday.
Young tripled and drove in three runs, Johnson singled and drove in three, Gianmarco Marcelletti had a pair of RBI and Dominguez singled, walked three times and scored three runs for Faith Baptist. Three Faith pitchers combined on a one-hitter, but issued 10 walks of their own.
Flores threw a complete-game, two-hit shutout with five strikeouts to lead West Oaks Academy to a 2-0 win over VBS Elite in the Showdown-Academies in the other semifinal Saturday afternoon. Renovales led off the bottom of the first with a triple and scored on a groundout by Joe Sostre, and West Oaks added an unearned run in the bottom of the fifth to account for the game’s only scoring.
Yadiel Villalomgo and Kemuel Hernandez combined on a six-inning two-hitter, striking out five and walking three, for VBS Elite.
2015 PG High School Showdown-Academies runnerup: West Oaks Academy
