FORT MYERS, Fla. – And just like that, it’s championship day at the 2019 Perfect Game 15u BCS National Championship.
After five days of pool-play competition and two days of playoffs, the two teams that will be paired in the championship game in Wednesday’s 15u BCS top-tier Championship Bracket have been determined. And, as is almost always the case, the matchup looks like it should be a dandy.
No. 5-seeded 5 Star National 15u Dobbs (8-1-0) out of Warner Robins, Ga., will take on the No. 3 Florida Dodgers Scout Team (9-0-0) out of Jacksonville in an 8 a.m. title tilt at Hammond Stadium on the Twins’ CenturyLink MLB spring training complex.
For 5 Star, this is a repeat performance of sorts. Seven members of this 5 Star National 15u Dobbs team were also rostered with the 5 Star National 14u King team that won last year’s PG 14u BCS National Championship.
“With these guys, they know each other so well; a lot of them have played together growing up,” 5 Star National 15u pitching coach Chris Harrelson told PG on Tuesday. “We’ve added a few pieces this year that have been great additions to our team and who do really well as far as pulling for each other. This is a fun group to be around and a fun group to coach.”
The 5 Star Nationals will be facing a Florida Dodgers Scout Team 2022 squad that has proven over the last seven days that it certainly belongs in this championship game. A 9-0-0 record at a PG national championship tournament event speaks loudly and carries a big stick.
“We’ve got a really good pitching staff that has thrown a lot of strikes, so that’s what we’re leaning on – throwing strikes and then making the plays behind them defensively,” head coach Tom Lucas said on Tuesday. “We hit it, put the ball in play and play 100 miles-an-hour, and these guys have been doing that all week.”
Everything seemed to move at 100 mph on Tuesday as both quarterfinal and semifinal games were played in the tournament’s Championship Bracket, all on the backfields at the jetBlue Park Player Development Complex, the MLB spring training home of the Boston Red Sox.
5 Star National opened with an 8-2 quarterfinal victory over previously unbeaten and the No. 4-seeded Top Tier Roos American 2022. With that win, the National 15u’s moved into the semifinals where they faced a very dangerous No. 9 seed in the Team Elite 15u Scout Team, a squad they’re very familiar with because they share a base of operations in the Atlanta area.
“We like to approach this to where we’re all pulling on the same rope,” TE 15u Scout Team pitching coach Kane Keith told PG after the team had taken down No. 1 seed Cannons Baseball Academy 2022 American in the quarters.
“Nobody can come between us; it’s about our team,” he continued. “It’s not about the other team, it’s not about who we’re playing, it’s just about us and keeping us together and all pulling on the same rope.”
5 Star National 15u won this tug-of-war by a 4-1 count. Team Elite got on the board first with a single run in the top of the fourth thanks to consecutive two-out singles from Brant Baughcum, Casey Saucke II and Everett Cooper, but the lead was short-lived.
The National 15u’s pushed across three runs in the bottom of the fifth in very short order. Davis Green led-off with a walk, and Jaxson West and Tag Williams both singled to load the bases. Tanner Zellem, a 2022 corner-infielder ranked No. 93 nationally, then delivered a two-run, ground-rule double, and Williams eventually scored on a one-out, fielder’s choice grounder for a 3-1 5 Star cushion.
It added a single run in the bottom of the sixth when Blaydon Plain smacked a lead-off triple and came all the way around to score. 2022 left-hander Drew Nelson gave up the one earned run on five hits, striking out six without a walk.
Team Elite 2021 lefty Camron Hill was pretty good, too, giving up two runs on one hit in his four innings of work. And with that, 5 Star National 15u Dobbs was headed for the championship.
“The biggest thing is that you have to realize that going into each game is that you have to win the one you’re in,” Harrelson said. “A lot of times in pool-play you may be looking a little bit ahead and trying to space things out a little bit as far as your pitching.
“But in bracket-play, you better respect every opponent and you better unload your gun if you have to as far as the pitching to make it through that round.”
The Florida Dodgers Scout Team 2022 may have made it to the semis on the strength of their pitching but they needed everything their bats could muster in their nail-biting 7-5 victory over No. 2 BBA National out of New Jersey in their semifinal matchup.
The Dodgers ST went into the bottom of the seventh with a 7-4 lead but looked up only to see that the Nationals had loaded the bases with no one out. 2022 right-hander Finn Howell had valiantly gutted out six innings of work against BBA but gave way to 2022 righty Christopher Crawford, who efficiently closed the door.
The Florida Dodgers totaled 10 hits in the win, with Howell and Mason Steel collecting six of the them from their top two spots in the order; Howell doubled and singled twice, drove in a run and scored two, Steel singled three times, drove in one and scored one; Bradley Hodges and Kade Frew each singled twice.
The BBA Nationals, who had 11 hits, were led by Rocko Brzezniak, who homered, doubled, singled, drove in two runs and scored one. Mark Capell doubled and singled and scored twice and Jacob Ramirez singled and drove in a pair.
“It’s great exposure for them down here and that’s what we tend to want to do,” BBA National head coach Paddy Matera told PG on Tuesday. “We just want them to get the best exposure they can possibly get to reach the next level … if they want to do that. … Being away from home, it’s a little vacation for some of them.”
Lucas told PG that the players on the Dodgers Scout Team 2022 enjoy tremendous team chemistry, which can be especially important at the 15u level when players are trying to figure out exactly where they fit in.
There are also some really talented players on the roster, like the 2022 “high follow” left-hander Bradley Hodges, who in two appearances here over the last week has thrown nine innings without allowing a run on one hit and striking out 19 without allowing a walk. William Ross, a 2022 right-hander and a Florida commit ranked No. 107 nationally, is another case in point.
“We just keep running guys out there that keep us in games, and we just keep looking for ways to scratch out two or three runs and try to figure out a way to win it.”
The success of BBA National was one of the top feel-good stories at this event. No one knew what to expect from “The Jersey Boys” coming in but they proved they belonged from the outset, rolling to the playoffs’ No. 2 seed after finishing the two-segment pool-play 6-0-0.
“It doesn’t matter who’s pitching for us, it doesn’t matter who’s playing the field, each one of them picks up their teammates and roots for them,” Matera said. “If you’re a good teammate you become a good player; that’s my theory with everybody. Every one of these kids is special in a unique way and everybody cheers for each other.”
So now the championship game looms, the ultimate destination. It’s the very reason that the players, coaches and families from 5 Star National 15u Dobbs and the Florida Dodgers Scout Team 2022 sweated through 100 degree temperatures with nearly matching humidity levels over this past week, and to go home empty-handed now would be a huge disappointment.
“We’re not changing anything; we just try to keep them on a level playing field,” Lucas said as his team’s playoff run got deeper and deeper. “We understand they’re going to have bad at-bats – the game of baseball is a very humbling sport – so we just try to get them to learn from their mistakes, look forward to the next plate appearance.
“We’re looking to compete,” he concluded. “We’re about the here and now, we’re going to compete and give 100 percent effort and see where that leads us.”