EMERSON, Ga. – After a marathon for a semifinal game and a
tornado delay in the championship game, the No. 10-seeded Elite Squad emerged as champions in the 13u
Perfect Game World Series at LakePoint, beating the Lamorinda Trojans 14-6 in
six innings.
The team jumped on Trojans starter Blake Burke early, thanks
to a 3-2, 2-out double by Manuel Souffrain to give his team a 3-0 lead. Antonio
Cabrera of the Trojans would respond in the bottom half of the inning after hitting
an RBI double to the gap, picking up sixth double and his 16th RBI
of the tournament. Although Lamorinda would respond, they could not shutout the
Elite Squad’s bats in the top of the second inning. Three walks would start the
inning off, and two passed balls led to runs crossing the plate for Elite
Squad. After Justin Colon hit an RBI groundout, Giovanny Cueto stepped to the
plate, and crushed a solo-home-run, his fifth extra-base hit of the tournament.
The team would tack on a total of eight runs in the top of the second to take a
commanding 11-1 lead.
The Trojans would not go down without a fight, though, and
with their backs against the wall in the bottom of the fifth, down 12-3, the
team would score three runs to avoid the run rule and make it a 12-6 game. Burke
was a key contributor in that inning for the Trojans, blasting a two-run home run
to right field to instill some energy into his team. Six would be all the team
would get, though, as it was not enough to catch up to the hot offense of the Elite
Squad, who would score two more in the top of the sixth inning to run rule the
Trojans.
“I’ve been around these kids for a long time, and I have
never seen a group of kids, 13 years old, hit the ball the way they can hit the
ball, or pitch the ball the way they pitched,” said Elite Squad head coach Omar
Borges. “We hit what, seven or eight home runs in the tournament. I don’t think
any other team did it, so I believe that our bats carried us throughout the
whole tournament.”
Borges certainly hit the nail on the head with that statement, with his team scoring
73 runs over eight games. Although they were held in check in two of their
first four games, having lost to D-Bat Elite 3-7 and Keystone War Eagles 1-6, they
scored no fewer than eight runs in their last four games, including a 10-1
victory against the Banditos Scout Team. The team was led by Cueto and Aiden
Mocks. The 5-foot-10, 165-pound Cueto finished the tournament with a .440
average (11-for-25) with a double, three triples, a home run, eight RBIs and four
stolen bases. Macks, who hit behind Cueto for much of the tournament, finished
the tournament by going 15-for-23 (.652) with two doubles, a triple, three home
runs and eight RBIs. His performance warranted him the MV-Player award for the
tournament, and Borges said that he had never seen a 13-year-old with as much
power as Macks possesses.
“It means everything, because this is the best teams in the
whole thing, and I’m one of the ones that won it,” Macks said on winning the
award. “I was feeling like nobody could strike me out. [I tried] Just staying
back on the ball, not laying forward, just staying back and hit the ball.”
Cole Ketchum received the ball on the mound for the Elite
Squad and turned in six innings, giving up six earned runs on 10 hits. Although
the line score does not reflect a stellar performance, Ketchum was brilliant
through the game’s first four, before a tornado delay interrupted play for
about 30-45 minutes. He would come back to finish off the game, securing the
win for the Elite Squad.
“Well, we knew exactly what kind of tournament this was, and
we knew it was going to come down to the end, so we made sure that we used our
rotation accordingly,” Borges said. “We lost a couple of games in our pool
games, but we were trying to make sure that we had enough pitching to carry us through
the whole tournament.”
The team faced a dilemma in the semifinal game, which ran
four hours and six minutes. With extra innings looming in a win-or-go home
situation, Borges would bring in the ace of their staff, Logan Forsythe, in the
fifth inning of that game to keep the game close. Forsythe would throw 5 2/3
innings, making him unavailable for the championship game.
“That was a tough one because it put our ace that I was
planning on holding [Forsythe] for the championship game, and we had to use
him. So, we relied on him, we knew they weren’t going to score runs against him
and basically knew it was going to be a grind right until the end,” Borges
said.
After the marathon game, the Elite Squad could have given in
to the exhaustion, having been at the park before 9:00 a.m., but they were able
to rally together to win the championship. Macks attributed the team’s energy in
the championship game to the talking and cheering in the dugout, which he said
helped lift their spirits and give them support. Borges was very proud of his
team for fighting and staying strong through the delays and the long games, and
gave credit to his kids, praising their play throughout the weekend.
"As a team and as an organization, I’ve been dealing with almost
75 percent of these kids since they were probably 5 and 6 years old, and as an
organization this is a big win for us, this is something that I don’t think has
been done before at 13u, so we’re very proud of the kids, and we’re proud that
we can represent the name well. Now the kids, I’ve got to give it to them. It
wouldn’t happen without them. It’s all about the kids," Borges said.
Kai Francis would win the MV-Pitcher award for the
tournament. Francis went eight innings, giving up just five hits and one earned
run, striking out six. He was stellar against the No. 1-seeded D-BAT Elite in
the quarterfinals, throwing a complete game, giving up four hits and just one
earned run to advance the Lamorinda Trojans to the semifinals.
2017 13u PG World Series runner-up: Lamorinda Trojans
2017 13u PG World Series MVP: Aiden Macks
