FORT MYERS, Fla. – It doesn’t take long for players, parents and coaches associated with the hundreds of travel ball organizations scattered across the country to realize that paths will be crossed both frequently and infrequently, depending on their Perfect Game tournament of choice.
On this Tuesday – the Fourth of July – a couple of very successful programs got a close-up look at one another once again, this time at the 15u Perfect Game BCS National Championship. Stealth 2020 Founders out of Del Ray Beach, Fla., and the Southlake, Texas-based Texas Bombers Elite are quite familiar with one another, and their paths usually seem to cross when PG BCS national championships are on the line.
Tuesday’s meeting came in the quarterfinal-round of the 15u PG BCS in a game played at the historic, downtown Terry Park complex. One year ago this month, the crossing of paths took place at jetBlue Park, and the occasion was the championship game at the 2016 14u BCS Finals.
“Just think about, with (72) teams, here are two teams that met last year in the finals and now we’re going to get to play each other again in the (quarterfinals),” Texas Bombers Elite veteran head coach Lale Esquivel told PG Tuesday afternoon. “It’s a big thing for them and a big thing for us, obviously, because we want to beat them this time around. They put it on us pretty good last year.”
July 10, 2016, was a memorable day for the Florida Stealth 14u Red. They beat the Texas Bombers Elite, 7-1, in the championship game to cap a tournament run that was arguably the most dominant in PG BCS national championship history.
The Stealth finished 9-0-0 and outscored their nine opponents by a combined 81-4; the team batting average was .425, the team ERA 0.65. It’s worth noting that the Bombers – who finished 9-1-0 – came into the championship game a bedraggled bunch, having had to play a 3½-hour, 12-inning semifinal game right before the title tilt. But that was last year.
On Tuesday, the No. 4-seeded Texas Bombers Elite arrived at Terry Park ready to take on the No. 5 Stealth 2020 Founders with the winner knowing it would advance to Wednesday’s semifinal round for a second straight year. The respect between the two programs was evident for all to see.
“Listen, this group over here (the Texas Bombers Elite), they’re well-coached, they’re a very talented team; we’re excited to play them and compete with them,” Stealth 2020 head coach Manny Sanguillen Jr. said. “This is the kind of competition that we want.”
Although one of these programs arrived from Florida’s Atlantic Coast and the other from the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs in North Texas, they are remarkably similar in how they go about their business, especially with these two 15u teams. Both have kept a core group of high-performing prospects from the class of 2020 together for several years now, and winning a lot baseball games has become the norm for both.
Sanguillen Jr. and the other coaches in the Florida Stealth program talk to their younger players a lot about the importance of not worrying about the roster makeup of the opposing team. They’re just going to have to assume that the players in the dugout on the other side of the field are either equal to them and may even be better players than they are, and it’s up to them to learn how to elevate their game to meet the level of the opposition.
“This is a long tournament and we tell the guys this is going to be mental challenge, so we’ve been really focusing on a collective effort from man number-one through 14, a total team effort,” he said. “It’s so hot (temperature-wise) and there’s so many good teams here, you have to use your whole roster.
“This type of environment where people are equal to or better than you all the time, teaches them to focus on themselves and go out there and try to play better (than the other team).”
The Stealth is a 15u team that plays good defense and generally pitches very well, and the coaches have found that if their players do those two things at a high level and continue putting pressure on the opposing team, eventually they will find a way to score to some runs. That’s kind of the idea going in, anyway.
“We don’t really judge our team on winning tournaments. It’s how we’re playing, and I think we’re starting to play well; that’s what I care about,” Sanguillen Jr. said. “Every team that is still left in this tournament right now – the teams in the playoffs – can win this event. It’s really about cutting down our own mistakes and capitalizing on (the opponent’s) mistakes; that’s who’s going to win the tournament.
“At this age, mentally they’re getting better and physically they’re starting to get stronger,” he continued. “Physically, they can hold up, so the physical part is going to be easy. It’s the mental part, and mentally you can see them maturing.”
The Stealth 2020 Founders entered the playoffs with a 6-0-0 record after out-scoring their six pool-play opponents by a combined 56-16. They beat No. 12 FTB Tucci Biao, 5-0, in a first-round playoff game Tuesday morning, paced by a complete-game four-hit shutout from 2020 righty Jaden Bruno; he struck-out four and walked four.
Six members of last year’s Florida Stealth 14u Red team that are back with the Stealth 2020 Founders team this year were named to the 2016 14u PG BCS all-tournament team: Christian Adams, Sawyer Feller, Jacob Lojewski, Nolan Schanuel, Eddie Sierra and Ben Vespi; Lojewski was named the Most Valuable Player.
Sanguillen Jr. was not the coach of last year’s 14u Stealth team, but he’s spent a lot of time around the players and he’s watched them grow.
“They matured last year because they were going from, ‘Hey, I have to player every inning and we’re going to go out and score 10 runs’ to wait a second, this is a baseball game and we may be down, and we’re going to have to learn how to win a one-run game,” he said.
“The 14u (BCS) tournament experience last year taught our guys that even though they might have some success early with a lot of runs, that’s not real baseball. Now our guys understand they have to know how to play close games and learn how to win them.”
The people who run the Florida Stealth Baseball organization have tried since day-one to build a “team first” culture within the program, Sanguillen Jr. told PG. The country’s top travel team organizations know that in today’s showcase culture – a very important culture, by the way, in terms of college recruiting and professional scouting – can create a “me-first” type of attitude that Stealth tries to steer away from.
“We want our younger players, when they leave our program to go to high school or college, to be the guys that can fit into a team environment, and we’re constantly looking for those type of players,” he said.
The Bombers returned to the quarterfinal round of a BCS tournament for a third straight year by outscoring their six pool-play opponents – they finished 5-0-1 – by a combined 38-17. They escaped the No. 13 Florida Burn Platinum by a 2-1 count in their first-round playoff game Tuesday morning with 2020 right-handers Cash McNicholas and Jonathan Martinez combining on a three-hitter with eight strikeouts. McNichols worked the first six innings and gave up only one unearned run, while striking out six and walking six.
Three prospects that helped the Texas Bombers Elite to their 14u BCS runner-up a year ago were back with the team this year after earning all-tournament recognition in 2016: Elijah Degrate, Jorge Figuerora and Yanluis Ortiz.
A right-handed slugging third baseman who is ranked No. 22 nationally in the 2020 class and is an alumnus of last year’s inaugural 14u PG Select Baseball Festival, Ortiz has verbally committed to Miami.
The core group of about seven 2020s on this Texas Bombers Elite roster has been playing together for nearly five years now and, in fact, won the 2015 13u PG BCS Finals national championship. They beat the MVP Banditos in the championship game, and Ortiz was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
“You almost (create) a family … because these guys are together for four to six months,” Esquivel said. “We all live somewhat close (to each other in Texas) and it’s a big family. They call each other and when we’re down here – out-of-town – we put them all together in one big house, and it really helps. … Overall, it’s a bunch of brothers (playing) together and once we get to the field it shows.”
Tuesday’s rematch started about an hour later than the scheduled first-pitch was originally scheduled for, and was delayed by lightning in late afternoon, but when the last out was recorded the same victor prevailed. Stealth 2020 Founders scored three runs in the third inning, two more in the fourth and made that work on its way to a 5-2 victory, which sent it into Wednesday’s semifinal round.
Vespi, a 6-foot-3, 160-pound right-hander from Boynton Beach, Fla., was terrific, scattering six hits over five innings with six strikeouts; he didn’t allow a walk or an earned run with 63 efficient pitches, and he also stroked three singles and drove in a run.
After eight games, he is hitting .524 (11-for-21) with 10 singles, a double and four RBI in the tournament. Schanuel singled, tripled and drove in a run and is hitting .706 (12-for-17) with three doubles, a triple and five RBI.
The Bombers Elite collected 10 hits from eight players, including a pair of singles from both Masyn Winn and Francisco Hernandez.
After a long Fourth of July filled with incessant heat and humidity and periodic weather delays, Wednesday’s final-four was finally set:
No. 5 Stealth 2020 Founders (8-0-0) will face No. 1 Team Elite 15u Prime (8-0-0) in one of the semifinals with No. 11 Top Tier Roos 15u Americans (7-1-0) taking on No. 7 Elite Squad 15u Prime (7-1-0) in the other semi; ES 15u Prime upset its sibling No. 2 Elite Squad Underclass Prime in the quarterfinals.
Their paths did, indeed, cross once again, and the plan moving forward with both the Stealth 2020 Founders and the Texas Bombers Elite programs is the same. Simply stated, they want to keep the core of these rosters playing together during the summer until they’ve exhausted their high school eligibility after the spring of 2020.
“We’re lucky that we have a great group of kids, we have a great group of parents, and I think we might get it done,” Sanguillen Jr. said. Esquivel was quick to add: “I’m going to stick with these guys right to the end.”
And, then, Esquivel expanded on that thought:
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years now with the Texas Bombers … and that’s why I do it,” he said. “I don’t charge a coaching fee; I do it because I love the game. I see these young guys move on to the next level into college and maybe one day get drafted and I’ll be able to say, ‘Hey, that guy used to play for me.’ It makes it fun.”