GOODYEAR, Ariz. – Mike Garciaparra brought a new-look Garciaparra Baseball Group (GBG) Marucci Navy squad into this weekend’s Perfect Game/EvoShield National Championship (Upperclass) looking to defend a PG national tournament championship a team with the same name won a year ago this week.
There are differences in the two teams, to be sure, which is to be expected when a program returns to defend a championship at an upperclass event. And that applies to GBG despite the fact that a team named GBG Marucci Navy also won the 2014 PG/EvoShield National Championship (Underclass) title.
But Garciaparra arrived here Friday for Navy’s tournament opener with some very real concerns, and most of those revolved around the pitching staff. His is a familiar refrain this time of year – and can no way be described as poor-boying – and is simply the reality teams face during a tournament being played in late September.
“A lot of guys are shut down right now with Jupiter (the PG WWBA World Championship) coming up, so we have a lot of other arms that we’ve brought up,” Garciaparra said Sunday afternoon. “We’ve only got two (college) committed arms on our whole staff, and normally we wouldn’t come here with that.
“But getting ready for the big main event in Jupiter, we had to have a lot of guys come in and step-up, and they’ve been doing a great job.” And then some, and then some, and then some.
The GBG Marucci Navy pitching staff turned in a pair of suffocating shutouts during bracket-play Sunday afternoon – its third and fourth in five games at the event – and the No. 3-seeded Navy once again sailed into Monday’s semifinal round.
This marks the third straight year a GBG Marucci Navy squad has advanced to the final four at the PG/EvoShield National Upper; the Navy left the desert after being fitted for PG national championship rings in both 2013 and 2014.
GBG’s inclusion represents a familiar and somewhat predictable final four, at least in terms of the playoff seeding.
No. 1 BPA DeMarini Elite (5-0-0) from San Juan Capistrano, Calif. – seemingly invincible after beating its five tournament foes by a combined 55-0 over the last three days – faces the No. 4 AZ Athletics 2016 (5-0-0) from Peoria, Ariz., in one of Monday’s semifinals. No. 2 CBA Marucci (5-0-0) from Temecula, Calif., faces its familiar nemesis No. 3 GBA Marucci Navy (5-0-0) from Los Angeles in the other semi.
With three rounds of the playoffs played on Sunday, there really weren’t that many surprises, save No. 24 North East Baseball from Hudson, Mass., advancing to the quarterfinals. The other seven quarterfinalists were the Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 seeds.
GBG Marucci Navy earned the playoffs’ No. 3 seed after outscoring its three pool-play opponents by a combined score of 23-1 – the only run allowed was unearned – and then blanked the No. 14 AGBC Wizards from Gilbert, Ariz., 2-0 in a second-round playoff game early Sunday. It followed that performance with another 2-0 win in the quarterfinals, this one against No. 6 All-Star Baseball Academy (ASBA) from Peoria, Ariz.
“Getting through any game in these events is always a big hurdle but especially that first playoff game,” Garciaparra said before the start of the quarterfinal versus ASBA. “It’s a team you’ve never seen before, and there was a big strike zone today, but both teams were having to deal with it.
“It was going to come down to the end and we knew that probably by the second inning, and that’s what it did. The guys battled through it and did some little things right … and it kind of changed the game.”
ASBA, meanwhile, was chasing its own version of glory. It earned the No. 6 seed after outscoring its three pool-play foes by a combined 25-2 – allowing only two runs in three games didn’t amount to much at this event – and then beat Sandlot Baseball Arizona out of Chandler, Ariz., in its second-round playoff game early Sunday.
“This is a younger team, all juniors, and any playoff game when you’re playing teams that have 2016 grads it’s going to be tough to win, but the kids have been playing really good,” ASBA head coach Roumaldo Romero said before his team faced GBG Marucci Navy. He described a very successful summer for this group, which included winning a 90-team 17u tournament over in Southern California.
“The Perfect Game tournaments are always really good,” Romero said. “You never know what’s going to happen, and sometimes your pool or your first-round (playoff opponent) could just be awesome – we’ve had it happen before when we couldn’t even get out of the pool. We actually had some very good teams in our pool (this weekend).”
The All-Star Baseball Academy certainly ran up against one in GBG Marucci Navy. By the end of the day Sunday, Garciaparra had used nine pitchers that worked the team’s 32 innings without allowing an earned run on 16 hits while striking out 41 and walking but six.
Four 2016 right-handers absorbed the brunt of the work without any of them being overworked; keep in mind, also, none of them allowed an earned run.
Michael Killeen from Long Beach, Calif., surrendered all of four hits in six brilliant innings, striking out 10 and walking none; Nolan Martinez from Culver City, Calif. – a San Diego State commit – threw five innings in two appearances and allowed only two hits with seven strikeouts and no walks; Ryan Shreve from Sherman Oaks, Calif., matched those five innings and gave up six hits with three strikeouts and a walk; Cooper Gallion out of Redondo Beach, Calif., threw four one-hit innings with six K’s and no BB’s.
The one thing GBG Marucci Navy didn’t do particularly well in the five wins that delivered it to the semifinals was hit the ball particularly well. It batted just. 257 as a team and counted only 10 extra-base hits – all doubles – among its 29 total hits.
Not surprisingly, the majority of those safeties came from tow of the usual suspects. 2016 infielder Spencer Steer enters Monday hitting .692 (9-for-13) with four doubles, two RBI and six runs scored; 2016 shortstop and PG All-American Ben Baird is at .412 (7-for-17) with three doubles, six RBI and three runs scored.
2016 infielder Will Proctor, a Georgia commit from Manhattan Beach, Calif., and 2016 outfielder/first baseman Griffin Keller from Long Beach join Steer, Baird, Killeen, Gallion and Martinez as the only players on this team that earned PG national championship rings with one of the two GBG Marucci Navy teams that captured titles here a year ago.
“I told them yesterday, ‘You guys have been here and you guys need to lead and show these guys what it’s about,’” Garciaparra said. “You can’t take a pitch off in these events and these are some of the best teams in the country, and it could come down to one pitch that makes a difference.
“You have to be ready and don’t take a pitch off and they go about their business that way, they should be in every single ballgame.”
All-Star Baseball Academy wasn’t able to penetrate GBG’s main line of defense – its pitching staff – and was stopped short of playing into Monday. It had nothing to do with not being prepared for the PG/EvoShield National Championship Upper, however.
Romero told PG Sunday that this fall ASBA owner Jonn Freitas had his youngsters playing games against some of the local junior college teams including those at Vavapai, Phoenix College and Paradise Valley.
“These guys have had to perform and that’s what they’ve done well this weekend,” Romero said. “That’s what I’ll say about this group is they’ve gotten their chance to play and when it’s their time at the plate or on the field, they’ve performed well. That’s how we’ve won the games that we won and that’s very gratifying for us as coaches.”
For the third time in three years, GBG Marucci Navy has put itself in position to win a PG national title at the PG/EvoShield National Championship Upper. It’s never easy, of course, and Garciaparra feels like his team had to battle especially hard earn this year’s final four berth.
“With 98 teams, it’s been unbelievable,” he said. “There are some teams from the Northeast and Hawaii and all kind of crazy stuff. It’s been awesome for these guys to play a bunch of teams that they’re not usually playing and get their feet wet with different people and see what baseball is like around the country.”