After fighting through an extremely tense contest all afternoon, Cali National Murphy broke through with a nine-run seven inning in the gold-medal game at the 14U National Team Championships Arizona and downed Next Level Baseball by a final score of 10-1. With the win, the team earned its first-ever top prize in the history of the event.

The story in the early goings of the game were the performances of the two starters -- Ervey Quijada for Cali National and Jesse Olivan for Next Level -- and their ability to work themselves in and out of trouble. The two traded turns walking the tightrope in the first two innings, with Quijada stranding runners on first and second in both frames and Olivan doing the same in the first before wriggling out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the second unscathed.

The first team to finally cash in on a scoring opportunity was Cali National, which jumped onto the scoreboard thanks to some excellent discipline at the plate. Back-to-back full-count walks to lead off the third chased Olivan from the game early, and after Dylan Bright singled to load the bases, DeMarcus Reyes scratched across the first run on a ground-ball double play. This would be all the team would get, though, as Next Level reliever Alex Lopez held the runner at third after this to keep it a one-run game.

After once again stranding multiple runners in the bottom half of the third, Next Level finally broke through in the fourth to level up the game at one apiece. Riley Falt led off the inning with a base hit on the first pitch he saw, and on the very next plate appearance, Lopez crushed a 2-2 offering well over the head of the center fielder for a triple to score Falt and bring things even once again.

The score would stay locked up like this until the very last inning of the game, when Cali National finally overcame its woes with runners on base and cathartically broke through with a nine-run explosion at the plate that blew the game wide open. The outburst started with one out in the frame, when Gage Owens singled and Anthony Tomminelli doubled to put the go-ahead run just 90 feet away from home. After an intentional walk loaded the bases to set up a potential double play, Eli Nunez came up big in the clutch and smoked a line drive into left field, scoring both runners and giving the team its first lead since the third inning.

From there, the hits just kept on coming. Following a stolen base by Nunez to put a pair of runners in scoring position yet again, Owen Dunne jumped in on the action by bouncing a base hit up the middle to drive home a pair of his own, increasing Cali National's lead up to four. This advantage would balloon even further just a few batters later as well, as with two outs, the team mashed four straight doubles to bring home five more and put the game well out of reach. Quijada began this stretch by roping a 1-0 pitch into left to net him two RBIs, and after that, Benjamin Hanna, Ryder Fredriksen, and Owens took turns trading places with each other to put the exclamation mark on an incredible inning.

Now having more than enough breathing room to work with, Quijada trotted out for the bottom half of the inning to finish his quietly excellent outing on the mound. He retired the first two hitters he faced in quick order with a strikeout and a groundout, and with just one out to go, he was lifted in order to soak in the adulation from both his teammates in the dugout and the spectators in the crowd. Kemuel Zhang was brought on in relief to seal the deal, and just three pitches later, the job was done, and Cali National came rushing out onto the field as the newly crowned champions.

Dugout Chatter

• "We have a hell of a group of guys that never stop battling, even when it's a 1-1 game going all the way through. We never stopped fighting, and that's the brand of this team. They're the comeback kids, and they never give up." - Cali National Murphy coach Dylan Murphy on how his team was able to pull off the victory in the gold-medal game.
• "I think at the beginning of the game, we were just trying a little too hard. We hit some line drives right at people and ran ourselves out of a couple of innings, but we were right there to push through. I think the guys relaxed a little bit in the seventh since we've been there before. We knew we had to put up some runs, and we did it." - Murphy on how his hitters broke out for the big seventh inning.
• "It means the world. It's been the most amazing season with these guys. They're a really special group. They deserve it, they're the ones that did it, so all the props to them." - Murphy on his team winning gold in their first time at the National Team Championships Arizona.

Notable Stats

• Cali National Murphy sent a whopping 14 hitters to the plate in the seventh inning, with 10 of them reaching via a hit or a walk.
• Both Owens and Tomminelli reached two separate times in the inning, with the former getting on with a single and a double and the latter with a double and a walk.
• Those two along with Bright led the team with two hits each. In the RBI column, it was Nunez, Dunne, and Quijada setting the pace, also with two each.
• Dunne also reached base in every one of his plate appearances, going 1-1 with the single in the seventh and three walks before that.
• Quijada finished his outing with a line of 6.2 innings pitched, six hits, one earned run, five walks, and five strikeouts. For the tournament, he ended with a 1.40 ERA in 10 innings thrown.