FORT MYERS, Fla. – The word “dominant” might be overused more than any other in our sports vocabulary, but there are times when no other word seems adequate. Foremost? Prevailing? Leading? Towering above (two words)? They just don’t tell the story.
Take, for example, the performance turned in by the Delray Beach, Fla.-based Florida Stealth 14u Red at the 14u Perfect Game BCS Finals over the past seven days: Nine games and nine victories an average margin of almost nine runs. The Stealth 14u Red used a lineup that hit .425 as a team and a nine-man pitching staff that allowed four earned runs over 43 innings, good for a combined ERA of 0.65. By the time they had completed their 9-0-0 run, they had outscored their opponents by a combined 81-4.
In short, it was a dominant week-long exhibit of strength and endurance that carried over into the championship game Sunday afternoon at jetBlue Park. The No. 1-seeded Florida Stealth 14u Red scored seven runs in the bottom of the second inning and then let another dominant pitching performance speak for itself in a 7-1 victory over the exhausted No. 7 Texas Bombers Elite (8-1-0). The Bombers, a bunch of tough kids out of Cleburne, Texas, played a 12-inning, 3½-hour semifinal game right before the championship game.
It almost seemed inevitable, this championship. Once the tournament got started back on July 4 and the Stealth 14u Red won their first two pool-play games by a combined score of 30-0 – they outscored their five pool opponents by a combined 68-1 to earn the top-seed – it looked as if this was going to be their PG national championship to lose. There was just something special about this group of young Floridians, just something about the way they conducted business.
“These guys are 14 (years old) but they’re really mature; I try to talk to them as if they’re older than that,” head coach Spencer Mumford said after Sunday’s championship game. “They’re really focused on the preparation part, the process, and not really with the results. Taking good swings, taking good at-bats, not really worrying about the results and knowing that the results will come.
“They trust each other, they play with each other, they play for each other,” he continued. “They’re really talented and they know the game well, and they’ve just grown so much since I’ve known them for the last year-and-a-half.”
Once the title game got started about two hours late because of the Bombers’ marathon semifinal contest, the Stealth 14u Red pounced. The big blast in that prolific second inning was a two-out bases-loaded triple off the bat of Jacob Lojewski with the 14u Red already leading 3-0, and from there, they just let 2020 right-hander Christian Adams do his thing. He managed to hold the Bombers Elite to just one run during a complete-game nine-hitter, striking out two and walking two.
Nolan Schanuel was 2-for-3 with an RBI and Adams went 2-for-3 at the plate in addition his strong outing from the mound. The Stealth 14u Red’s Eddie Sierra was hitless in the championship game but finished the event with a team-high 11 hits (3 2Bs, 2 3Bs); Schanuel and Adams both finished with 10 hits.
Lojewski, a 5-foot-7, 150-pound 2020 play-anywhere kind of guy from West Palm Beach, Fla., finished 9-for-18 (.500) with three doubles, a triple, a team-high 12 RBI and six runs scored and was named the tournament Most Valuable Player. He seemed to genuinely enjoy the entire 14u PG BCS Finals experience: “It was a lot of fun, and I liked how we could bury all the teams that we played,” he said. “We just kept hitting over and over and over, and we also had great pitching.”
As well as they hit, it was the Stealth 14u Red’s pitching and defense that put them over the top. This is not a staff with overpowering stuff – it gave up 41 hits, walked 10 and struck-out 22 in its 43 innings of work – but along with the guys playing behind them (the 14u Red made only two errors in 175 total chances, according to GameChanger), they simply kept opponents from crossing the plate.
One of the best at that was Gavin Scott, a 5-foot-10, 190-pound 2019 right-hander from Jupiter, Fla. Scott made two appearances, including a stellar outing in the 14u Red’s semifinal victory, and allowed but one earned run in 10 2/3 innings (0.66 ERA) on five hits while striking out nine and walking two. He was named the Most Valuable Pitcher.
“We have some guys who at 14 are throwing three pitches for strikes; some are almost throwing four pitches,” Mumford said. “To be able to show that at 14 is crazy – absolutely crazy. They go at people; they’re not scared. We throw inside, we throw outside and we throw a lot of fastballs, but then we’re able to throw two other pitches for strikes. It’s their mentality because they trust the people behind them and they go at people. They did it this week, and our defense was awesome, too.
Obviously, the Texas Bombers were pretty darn good down here all week, too, as they tried for a repeat of the PG national championship they won at the 2015 13u PG BCS Finals. Nine players that were on that 13u roster were on this 14u roster, including five that were named to the all-tournament team.
2020s Yanulis Ortiz and Jorge Figueroa were among those all-tournament team selections from a year ago – Ortiz was the MVP – and both performed very well again this week. Nicklaus Baumbach and Kaden Teafatiller were also very good at the plate for the Bombers Elite, and Jovan Gill, Dylan Carmouche and Paco Hernandez were among the standouts on the mound.
In a pair of semifinal games played earlier Sunday morning on the back practice fields at the jetBlue Park Player Development Complex, the Stealth 14u Red moved past the No. 12 FTB Select 2020 (7-2-0) from Orlando, 6-0 – their sixth shutout in nine games – while the Bombers Elite worked nearly double-overtime in beating the No. 6 Elite Squad Underclass 14u Prime (7-1-0) from Pembroke Pines, Fla., 9-4 in 12 innings.
The game between the Bombers Elite and the Elite Squad Under 14u Prime – which lasted 3½ hours – was tied 4 after six innings and stayed that way until the Bombers dropped their entire payload in the top of the 12th.
Gill led-off the frame with a double, moved to third on a bunt single from Hernandez and then scored the go-ahead run on a double from Edison Ramos; they were far from done. Still with no one out, Yohandy Morales smacked a two-run single and Baumbach added an RBI single before the first out was made. And that was a sacrifice fly from Teafatiller that gave the Bombers a 9-4 lead they would take into the bottom half of the inning.
Teafatiller finished 3-for-5 with the two RBI, and Gill, Figueroa and Ortiz each had two hits to contribute to the Bombers Elite’s 13-hit attack. Hernandez, a 2020 right-hander, was brilliant in relief, pitching 6 1/3, one-hit scoreless innings with one strikeout and five walks.
The Squad Under 14u Prime totaled seven hits but only one after the sixth innings. Adrien Figueroa had two of their seven singles, and drove in a run and scored a run.
Scott pitched a complete-game, three-hit shutout with five strikeouts and no walks in the Stealth 14u Red’s semifinal victory; Bailey Uderitz doubled, drove in a run and Ben Vespi had three singles among the 14u Red’s six hits.
The Stealth 14u Red beat the No. 16 Indiana Prospects 16u, 8-2, in the playoffs’ second round and slipped past the No. 9 Florida Burn Platinum 2020, 2-0, in the quarterfinals. The Bombers Elite dumped the No. 10 Tampa Bay Arsenal, 6-1, in second-round play and upset No. 2 The Court-Kangaroo Court Baseball Club, 7-2, in the quarters.
“Perfect Game put on a great tournament and it’s nice to see the results be positive,” Mumford said. “They’re just a great group of kids focused on the right things and they play the game the right way.”
2016 14u BCS Finals runner-up: Texas Bombers Elite
2016 14u BCS Finals MVP: Jacob Lojewski
2016 14u BCS Finals MV-Pitcher: Gavin Scott
