EMERSON,
Ga. – The 14u Perfect Game World Series is now in its final rounds
of the playoffs, as the quarterfinal matchups were played Sunday
morning at the LakePoint complex to decide the final four. Left in
the playoffs were some familiar faces from the 15u WWBA National
Championship, with the Houston Banditos, Phenom Signature, and the
East Cobb Astros all gunning for a 14u title.
Aside
from the regular contenders, there were some teams chasing the crown
that are relatively unknown. Everyone knows about the Houston
Bandtios, but it was a different Banditos team making headlines
today, as the Team MVP Banditos squared off against the No. 1 seed
Lamorinda Titans for a spot in the semifinals.
With
this tournament being much smaller than the WWBA National
Championships that resided over the field at LakePoint for over a
month, these teams are fresh and loaded with arms to hopefully last
them all the way to the championship. That showed on Sunday with the
pitching that was displayed by both teams. There were a good amount
of runs in this game, but don’t let that fool you into thinking
that these starting pitchers weren’t on their A game today. These
teams were just extremely hot at the plate, especially the Banditos,
who were consistently driving the ball to deep left-center.
Heading
into the game the Team MVP Banditos were 3-1 as compared to the
Titans’ perfect 4-0 record, but the Banditos were fully confident
they could take down this talented team from Santa Ynez, Cafif.,
regardless of seeding. In fact, despite the Titans’ better record,
the Banditos had outscored the Titans 27-21. The difference in power
on offense became quite apparent very early in the game.
In
the top of the first inning the Titans’ starting pitcher, Javier
Felix, had a duel with the Banditos’ leadoff batter, Luis Tuero,
which resulted in a home run that sailed over right field fence for
the first run of the game. That would not be all that we would be
hearing from Tuero, and just by watching him as he crossed home plate
in this first inning you could tell there was a look of ferocity and
undeniable determination in his eyes.
The
Banditos would score another in the first inning off of a sac fly,
but Felix was not rattled in the least. He racked up five strikeouts
through his first two innings, and looked like he was going to settle
in before the Banditos came out swinging in third inning. Felix’s
arm angle, low-80s fastball, and dirty curveball make him pretty
tough to hit, but the Banditos' bats were simply too hot on this day.
On
the other side of things, the Banditos’ starter, Jacob Shaver, was
dealing. He was inducing groundballs and foul pop outs and showed
amazing poise throughout the entire start. Shaver really let his
defense work, which allowed for his offense to stay hot in between
innings. The Banditos would come back in the top of fifth inning and
put this game out of reach. Four more runs of offense later, and the
score was now 9-1, with the run rule taking effect.
Shaver
would come out the very next inning and make it official, as he would
retire the next side of Titan batters to finish the game by the same
score, 9-1. He was fantastic through five innings, and finished the
day with only two hits allowed and no earned runs. Not only did
Shaver’s performance impact today’s game, but impacts the next
possible games as well. The Banditos needed him to go the distance
because it keeps the other arms on their team fresh for the rest of
the playoffs, and now that he has, they are locked and loaded for
tomorrow’s semifinal game against a talented Phenom Signature
squad.
“When
you have a team like this, that’s as loaded with the bat as we are,
all I have to do is go in and throw strikes,” said Shaver after the
game. “If I just hit my spots and throw strikes, I know they’re
going to back me up with defense and hitting. I don’t have to worry
about too much out there. My curveball was big for me today, because
when I get behind or ahead, I can trust that pitch whenever to keep
them off balance.”
This
Team MVP Banditos team is a force to be reckoned with due to their
tenacity and ability to play as a unit. They have a lot of heart and
every player on their roster feels that a 14u PG World Series title
is well within their grasp.
“We
play with a lot of heart; when we get down, we don’t let it get to
us and we try to keep going no matter what,” Shaver added. “We
keep fighting until the end, because we don’t like losing at all.
We don’t expect to ever lose and we try to win every game we play,
and it doesn’t matter who the opponent is.”
For
as great as Shaver was on the mound, shortstop Luis Tuero arguably
was even more more impressive. He made plays all day on defense, but
what he did with the bat was quite special. As noted, he started the
game off with a home run, added another run-producing base hit later
in the game and also came around to score two more times. Tuero
accounted for more than half of the Banditos’ offense on Sunday,
and his approach at the plate was superb.
After
his first at-bat Tuero did not try to do too much at the plate like a
lot of youngsters can do after hitting a bomb; he just looked for a
pitch in the zone, put it on the ground and used his wheels to get on
base. With a pair of infield hits Tuero was a perfect 3-for-3 on the
day.
“We
knew that team was really good because they had beaten us two years
ago, and coming into this game, they were the one-seed,” Tuero
said. “They threw one of their horses at us and we just did what we
could do. I was looking for my pitch, and I knew their pitcher had a
good slider so I was just looking for a fastball early in the count.
I just wanted to be aggressive.
“We
have a really good chance to win this thing. We have our horses left
to pitch, and if we play like today, (with) hustle and focus, we will
be okay.”
The
Team MVP Banditos have a next-man-up kind of mentality, and are
constantly staying positive no matter what the circumstance is. They
understand that baseball is a game of failure and sometimes you’re
not going to have your best game, but they know that someone else
always has to step up.
That’s
what Head Coach Cesar Temes thinks they have been doing this week,
and he feels that everybody has filled their role and came up big
when they were called on. Coach Temes hopes that can continue in
tomorrow’s semifinal round.
“We’re
playing as a team. Believe it or not, some guys have been hot, some
guys haven’t been, and some days will be good and others will be
bad; it’s going to rotate like that and I try to explain that to
them,” Coach Temes said. “They deal with the failure and move on,
and every day it has been someone else stepping up. It’s a talented
team, and we stick together and don’t break down. If I stay cool,
then they stay cool, and I just tried to stay relaxed and treat this
game as another baseball game, even though the Titans were the
one-seed.
“We
were loose and relaxed, and as soon as the game started, we jumped on
them. With Jacob going the whole game today, our pitching has been
re-vamped and will be ready for a big day tomorrow.”