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Tournaments | Championship | 3/25/2017

O'Fallon claims Rawlings Crown

Vincent Cervino

Photo: Perfect Game

EMERSON, Ga. – A clash of undefeated teams met in the championship final as the O'Fallon Township Panthers scored early and took down the Cullman Bearcats by a final score of 3-1. Tournament MVP Jordan Richardson was the difference in the game as his two-run double in the first inning gave the Panthers a lead they would not relinquish.

“Just hit it where they ain’t," said Richardson. "Sometimes you have to hit it down the line and there was a guy in scoring position and we just have to get that guy in however we can.”

The Bearcats came into this game riding high off their impressive pitching staff and had only surrendered one run in the previous three games combined. Starters Jacob Heatherly, Levi Thomas, and Will Morrison had combined for nineteen innings of one-run ball and struck out twenty-seven batters during that span.

The Panthers took a bit of a different route to the final, using timely hitting and pitching to come through in the clutch in order to advance each round. One of those tight situations was in the semifinals when the Panthers finally broke through in the sixth inning to take the lead and down Savannah Christian 1-0.

The previously mentioned Richardson had the hit of the game in the first inning of the game. He doubled down the first base line to give the Panthers a two-run lead and that was all that starter Health Zuber needed.

Zuber, in the words of his coach Jason Portz, "had little-to-no varsity experience" coming into this championship game. That inexperience was a non-factor, however, as Zuber was magnificent on the mound and kept a very impressive Bearcats lineup limited all afternoon. He finished with the complete game while allowing no earned runs and six strikeouts.

The Panthers' defense made some mistakes in the sixth inning that allowed Cullman to push a run across and cut the lead to two. Zuber was unaffected, as he locked in and got his team out of the jam with the lead intact.

The final inning was uneventful as a strikeout and a ground ball double play ended Cullman's chances and sealed the victory for the O'Fallon squad.

Coach Portz was very proud of his team, not only for winning the tournament, but for accomplishing their goal of competing with some of the toughest opponents on the schedule. Traveling from the Midwest can be draining for a team but that did not affect the Panthers as they were able to finish 4-0 during the event.

“As far as the championship in general, we were just coming in and playing good baseball," said Portz. "Being from St. Louis, you just never know what kind of weather you’re going to get in the spring. You come down here to feel out your team and get better as a group. And you hope to win some games. As we got into this we continued to play better. We have a group who has been together for a long time and we bring a lot of great players back, including Jordan (Richardson), and we really came together as a group. Winning the whole thing is really beyond what our goal was. As we got into that quarterfinal against DeMatha and we pulled through, we felt like we had a chance to win this. We had Logan Boente go out there and deliver for us in the semifinals, and he’s seasoned guy for us; then Zube (Health Zuber) go out there in the championship and pitch well with limited-to-no varsity experience says a lot about our team.”

The Panthers saw a lot of top-tier talent this weekend and that will undoubtedly give them momentum heading into the rest of their season. The level of competition is a staple of the Perfect Game events and that O'Fallon rose above the crop is a testament to their talent as a team.

“I think our guys come out and just try to play fundamental baseball; we don’t worry too much about what’s going on the other side," said Portz. "We know we’re going to come out and play against opponents who have played a lot of games and their arms are going to be a little bit more fresh. Once you get between the lines, it’s all baseball. You know coming to a Perfect Game event that you’re going to see great arms and just playing in this event is going to make us better for the rest of the year. Hell, I think we saw 90 mph three out of the four games this weekend. It was a great event, there were a lot of great players here and for us to win this is a feather in our program’s cap and a feather in our seniors’ cap.”

The conference season is right around the corner for the Panthers, and the PG Rawlings Select Classic #1 was the final tune-up in preparation for the most important part of their schedule. If their showing this weekend was any indication, the conference season should see the Panthers collecting a lot of victories.

“We start our conference season on Tuesday, so I think this gives us a ton of confidence going into that. Our players are fresh and our eyes and hands are ready to play against our conference competition. We’re jumping in now and we’ve been battle-tested against, what we feel, is some of the best competititon in the nation. We’re still going to lose some games from time to time but we are definitely ready. These first eight or ten games of the season we view as a Spring Training or a Preseason. We’re ready to vault into conference with a lot of confidence.”

In addition to the game-deciding hit, the MVP Richardson finished the tournament hitting .346 while leading the team in RBI, extra-base hits, and slugging percentage. The MV-Pitcher for the event was Levi Thomas for the Bearcats. He put together a masterful performance on Friday night that saw him throw a complete game shutout while striking out seven and allowing only two hits.

“Jordan is a guy who is aggressive, and I think that’s important whenever you have runners in scoring position," said Portz. "He’s a guy that we want up there when we have guys in scoring position. He missed just a couple of balls today on some good swings. In the game you don’t always get good results but that (first) at-bat was the big hit for us. He got the big hit in the game against Savannah as well; he has a really good approach and did a very good job.”

2017 Rawlings Select Classic #1 runner-up: Cullman High School

2017 Rawlings Select Classic #1 MVP: Jordan Richardson

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