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Tournaments | Story | 6/20/2019

WWBA Q-FL champs crowned

Jeff Dahn

Photo: Florida Burn 2020 Platinum (Perfect Game)

Burn 2020 Platinum brings it home at 17u PG WWBA National Qualifier-Florida

FORT MYERS, Fla. – Yet another Perfect Game WWBA championship trophy is heading back to Sarasota with the Florida Burn organization, but these salty Burn teams continue to learn that winning these things isn’t becoming any easier. Maybe it’s that whole “target on your back” thing. Who knows?

The Florida Burn 2020 Platinum saw leads of 1-0, 3-2 and 4-2 go by the wayside before rallying to beat X Team 2020, 5-4 in eight innings in the championship game of the PG WWBA 17u National Championship Qualifier-Florida; it was played Thursday morning at Hammond Stadium at the CenturyLink Sports Complex.

The top-seeded Platinum made a clean sweep at the tournament, finishing 6-0-0; the No. 3 X Team 2020, based in Plantation, finished 4-2-0.

Florida Burn 2020 scored its five runs on eight hits and thanks to a couple of costly X Team errors, only one of its five runs was earned. X Team scored its four runs on nine hits, and two of those runs were unearned.

“The X Team is a really, really strong hitting team with good pitching and they did the little things well,” Burn 2020 Platinum head coach Craig Faulkner said postgame. “I was real proud of my pitchers. I had three guys who threw strikes and were dominant on the mound. … Especially, my middle guy comes in, my side-armer (Jason Englert) and he comes in pumping strikes.”

With the scored knotted at four going into the bottom of the eighth, the Burn’s Carter Grier was plunked by a pitch with one out and nobody on. He moved to second on a one-out single from Samuel Gordon and ended-up on third when Matthew Barnhorst reached on an error.

Mac Guscette, a 2020 catcher and a Florida commit ranked No. 115 nationally, stepped in and delivered a sacrifice fly to deep left field, which chased Grier home with the winning run.

Burn 2020 right-handers Daniel Vassallo, Englert and Trace Goforth combined on the eight-inning nine-hitter, allowing the two earned runs and striking out 12 without a walk. Englert, who Faulkner referred to earlier, threw 37 pitches in four innings, 75 percent of them for strikes.

It was the second outing of the tournament for Vassallo, who ended-up pitching seven scoreless frames, allowing five hits with eight strikeouts and no walks; he was named the Most Valuable Pitcher.

Pierce Chambers – a 2020 TCU commit ranked No. 448 nationally – doubled, singled and drove in three runs to pace the Burn. Gordon singled twice and scored a run and Barnhorst contributed a pair of singles.

Romeo Sanabria delivered a pair of singles and drove in a run to lead X Team on Thursday. Blake Purnell singled twice and scored a run and Juan Correa – a Stetson commit – contributed a pair of singles.

Sanabria finished with a tournament-high 11 hits in 19 at-bats (.579) with two doubles, four RBI and three runs scored and was named the Most Valuable Player.

The Burn Platinum’s Guscette and Chambers hit 3-4 in Faulkner’s batting order and they came up big all week. Guscette was 6-for-14 with two doubles, a triple and eight RBI while Chambers finished 7-for-13 (.538) with four doubles and six RBI.

The Florida Burn 2020 Platinum earned the No. 1 seed by outscoring its four pool-play opponents by a combined 33-1 and then beat the No. 4 Florida Burn 2020 Beisner, 4-0, in Wednesday’s semifinal. “These guys all played well; they had given up only one coming into this (championship game),” Faulkner said.

They were going to be heading to the PG WWBA 17u National Championship up in the Atlanta area next month anyway, but this championship means the team gets a paid berth to that mega-event. It will also serve as a springboard of sorts into the PG National Championship event.

“This is what we needed, to see some good competition so that we’re ready for some difficult games (in Georgia),” Faulkner said. “This is definitely a good warm-up for that tournament. Perfect Game always puts on great events.”

West Florida Scorpions 2021 select take title at WWBA 16u Qualifier-Florida

FORT MYERS, Fla. – After needing to play an extra inning to pick up wins in both their quarterfinal game Wednesday night and their semifinal game Thursday morning, the West Florida Scorpions 2021 Select were hoping to work a normal seven-inning shift on Thursday afternoon. Playing quickly and efficiently, that was all that was needed.

The Scorpions 2021 Select plated single runs in the bottom of the first, second and sixth innings and let a pair of capable 2021 right-handers take care of the rest and topped the Boca Raton-based Original Florida Pokers 2021, 3-0, in the championship game at the Perfect Game WWBA 16u National Championship Qualifier-Florida played at Hammond Stadium.

“It was really a lot of fun,” Scorps 2021 Select right-hander Todd Velotta told PG postgame. “We all jelled together and we just put up some hits and the defense did their work; it was a fun time. … We all love each other and we all like playing ball together; we all really feed off each other.”

The No. 2-seeded WF Scorpions Select (7-0-0) scored their three runs on five hits while the No. 8 Original Florida Pokers (5-2-0) were shutout on six hits during this snappy affair. The Scorps jumped on the Pokers in the bottom of the first when Daniel Torrealba came through with a two-out RBI double and the momentum didn’t shift after that.

Luke Holman stroked a two-out RBI single in the third, and West Florida plated its final run in the sixth when Torrealba reached on a fielder’s choice, eventually made it to third and was able to steal home uncontested.

A pair of Scorpions Select right-handers, Caden Marsters and Aidan Troy, combined on the seven inning six-hit shutout, with Marsters throwing 5 2/3 innings of five-hit ball with a strikeout and a walk, and Troy allowing just one hit in his 1 1/3 innings of work.

The Pokers’ Nicholas Romano went 3-for-3, accounting for half of the six singles his team collected on this day. Pokers’ starter David Schreibman was pretty good in his own right, allowing two earned runs on five hits with a strikeout and three walks in 5 1/3.

Torrealba went 9-for-19 (.474) with four doubles, six RBI and four runs scored and was named the Most Valuable Player. Velotta threw a complete-game, nine-strikeout no-hitter on Wednesday and was named the Most Valuable Pitcher.

The Scorps Select had to really battle to reach the championship game. They beat No. 8 X Team 2021 4-3 in eight innings in the quarterfinals and had to rally to top the No. 6 Florida Burn 2021 Platinum 5-4 in eight innings in the semis.

“This is a good group of guys; we’re all good friends,” Torrealba said. “We played really hard with two extra-inning games before the championship, so it’s a lot of hard work.”

This tournament championship earned the West Florida Scorpions a paid berth to next month’s PG WWBA 17u National Championship up in the north Atlanta suburbs, a tournament they had already been invited to anyway. It’s just part of the deal.

“We play for each tournament, and we play every kid in every game and try to give them all a good experience and we try to make sure that they’re getting better at their game,” Florida High School Hall of Fame coach and WF Scorpions 2021 head coach Clyde Metcalfe told PG on Wednesday. “That’s what they do this for in the summer.

“There’s a whole lot of things they could be doing over the summer besides what they’re doing today,” he added. “… There are a lot of other options out there but this is what they chose to do, so there obviously is still a passion.”

2019 17u PG WWBA National Qualifier-Florida Runner-Up : X Team