GLENDALE, Ariz. – The Super Bowl will be played at University of Phoenix Stadium here in Glendale in a couple of weeks. Everything about the Super Bowl seems out of proportion. In fact, those two words – “Super” and “Bowl” – when put together have become synonymous with anything that has been super-sized to the degree that it might reach the “epic” threshold.
Late Monday afternoon at the Camelback Ranch Ballpark – which sits in a manner of speaking in the elongated shadow of that behemoth known as University of Phoenix Stadium – a Super Bowl-sized rally was started and completed by a bunch of local kids during a 35-minute top-of-the-seventh inning.
It was only one of 14 half-innings that were played during the championship game at the 18u Perfect Game MLK Championship but the only one that reached near epic proportions in terms of the AZ Prowlers’ comeback and the Dbacks Elite Scout Team’s failure to stop it.
The AZ Prowlers, a veteran group out of Peoria -- just to the north of both Camelback Ranch and University of Phoenix Stadium on the 101 Loop – plated nine runs in the top of the seventh to erase an 8-3 deficit they had against the mighty Dbacks Elite, and made it stand for a 12-8 victory that left many in attendance scratching their heads and not quite believing what they had just seen.
What really raised the rally to Super Bowl proportions was the fact that the Prowlers (6-0-0) scored all nine of their comeback runs with two outs.
“It was just a crazy game how we were down five in the last inning and we were able to come all the way back and win by (four),” AZ Prowlers’ all-around standout Ryan Nelson said. “A few people got some hits and then the momentum took over and we all started getting hits.”
The Dbacks Elite Scout Team (4-1-0) were a top-two seed that received a bye into the semifinals, a convenience the Prowlers didn’t enjoy. The Dbacks Elite looked firmly in control as they took a 3-0 lead into the top of the sixth inning, but the Prowlers showed their first sign of spunk by pushing three runs across and tying the game at 3. Undeterred, the Dbacks Elite came back with five of their own in the bottom of the sixth to reclaim the drivers’ seat.
And that was when the Prowlers decided they wanted to do the driving themselves.
They sent 15 batters to the plate against four Dbacks’ pitchers in the seventh, and those 15 collected five hits and accepted seven walks. The rally started with a two-run single off the bat of Aaron Prado to cut the Dbacks Elite’s lead to 8-5 and then really took hold when Nelson drilled a bases loaded double to centerfield that tied the score at 8.
Harrison Altieri and Cole Bygum followed with RBI singles and after Tyler Wyatt and Kyler Murphy received bases loaded walks, the final margin of victory had been set at 12-8.
“That’s the way it’s been for us all weekend,” head coach Rudy Karre said of his team’s land-mine filled road to the championship. “These guys battled all the way and did a great job. We were just happy to be in the championship game with the teams we had to face. It was our week and we had a lot of good performances.”
Nelson finished the championship game 3-for-4 with the double and four RBI; Prado had two hits and two RBI; both Altieri and Bygum finished with two hits and an RBI. On the Dbacks’ side, Erick Miqueles doubled, tripled and drove in three; Blake Perkins doubled and drove in a pair, and Matthew Kroon was 2-for-3 with a triple and three runs scored.
Nelson. A 6-foot-1, 160-pound, uncommitted 2015 first baseman/outfielder/right-hander from Phoenix, was named the Most Valuable Player. He went 8-for-17 (.471) at the plate with four doubles, six RBI and six runs scored, and allowed one earned run on two hits over four innings in his only pitching appearance, striking out seven and walking two.
“It’s been fun because this is our last tournament together before we start high school ball, so it’s nice to go out with the win,” Nelson said. “We’re all pretty easy going and relaxed. We’ve been playing together for what seems like forever and it just came together here.
”We’re confident that we can win every tournament that we’re in and it just happened that we won this one.”
Rudy Karre, the coach’s son with the same name, hit .375 (3-for-8) with two doubles, 10 walks, three RBI, eight runs scored and a .762 on-base percentage.
The Prowlers’ Chaz Montoya, a 2016 left-hander from Glendale who has committed to Arizona State, was named the Most Valuable Pitcher. He made three appearances and finished 1-0 after allowing seven earned runs on 14 hits over 13 innings (3.77 ERA) with 25 strikeouts and four walks.
The AZ Prowlers finished pool-play at 3-0 but didn’t earn a high enough seed to get one of the two byes out of the playoffs’ first round. They went right to work first thing Monday morning and beat Showtime Baseball out of Battle Ground, Wash., by a 6-0 count in the first round.
That led to a semifinal matchup with formidable North East Baseball (3-1-0) out of Ayer, Mass., an all-star squad filled with 19 players committed to 17 different D-I schools and the other top-two seed alongside of the Dbacks Elite.
The Prowlers pounced, jumping to a 3-0 lead after two innings, and after North East cut that lead to 3-2 after three, the Prowlers put it away with two in the top of the seventh.
Nelson was 2-for-3 with a pair of doubles and an RBI in the win. Montoya threw a complete-game five-hitter, allowing two earned runs while striking out 11 and walking three. North East’s Luke Eigsti, a top prospect out of Scottsdale, tripled and drove in a run, one of five NEB players to collect a single hit in the game.
After receiving their first-round bye, the Dbacks Elite Scout Team handily set the upstart MN Blizzard Blue packing with a 10-2, six inning win in the semifinals.
Miqueles – he hit .444 (4-for-9) with two doubles, a triple, a home run and five RBI in four games – was 2-for-2 with that home run, two RBI and two runs scored. Matthew Kroon, Jared Mang and Cesar Salazar each drove in a pair of runs. Four Dbacks’ pitchers combined on a three-hitter, striking out six and walking five.
With his core group of players getting ready to graduate from high school in the spring, there was speculation that this might be head coach Rudy Karre and the Prowlers’ final PG tournament. It turns out that’s not the case.
“We’ll probably do one more summer,” Karre said. “A lot of the boys are going to be going to (college) but, again, it’s just to go out and have fun, but we do plan on playing in a few more tournaments this summer.”
The AZ Prowlers have always been ultra-competitive at the PG MLK and PG WWBA West Memorial Day events through the years. They won the 2011 14u PG Desert Classic – the PG MLK’s predecessor – and finished runner-up at the 16u PG Desert Classic the same year. There was a championship at the 2012 16u PG WWBA West Memorial Day Classic and a runner-up at the 2013 16u PG MLK Championship.
“It hasn’t been about trying to go out and pick up the top recruits or the D-I kids or whoever it may be,” Karre said. “I feel like a core group like that with kids that get along can beat anybody out there and I think we proved it today.”
And they proved it Super Bowl-sized fashion.
2015 18u Perfect Game MLK Championship runner-up: Dbacks Elite Scout Team
2015 18u Perfect Game MLK Championship MVP: Ryan Nelson, AZ Prowlers
2015 18u Perfect Game MLK Championship MV-Pitcher: Chaz Montoya, AZ Prowlers
