After two days of competition, just two teams remained, as the Northwest Stripes are slated to take on the Southeast Stars in the 2019 16U NTIS Champions Cup gold medal game. 
After going 3-0 in pool play, the Northwest Stripes earned a spot in the semifinals against the Southwest Stripes. After a giving up a run in the first, Northwest Stripes' Philip Penrose-Gonzalez hit an RBI-single to tie the game in the bottom of the second. The Northwest Stripes plated their second run of the game in the bottom of the third thanks to a sacrifice-fly hit by Jake McCoy. Northwest Stripes would go on to score three more insurance runs and win 5-2.
The Northwest Stripes pitcher, Robert Hipwell, pitched three innings of scoreless baseball and praised his team's offensive abilities in the semifinal game. 
"I thought we played really well. We kept the noise loud in the dugout and were able to string together multiple hits to get us a win," said Hipwell.
The Northwest Stripes have proved all tournament to be a complete team, outscoring opponents 26-8 in the first three games. Coach Kevin Kopple believes his team has taken advantage of the opportunities given to them all tournament. 
"We have swung the bats pretty well all weekend. I think we have been able to capitalize on most of our chances. We have been throwing strikes and minimizing innings," said Kopple. "There have been times where we dodged bullets and not allowed out opponents to have big innings."
The second semifinal game featured the Southwest Stars and the Southeast Stars going into extra innings to determine who would advance to Sunday's gold medal game. The Southeast Stars were first to strike with an RBI-single from Aiden Fancher in the top of the third. The Southwest Stars would respond with an RBI-single of their own from Bryson Hoier in the bottom of the fifth. The two teams remained tied through regulation and the game was forced into extra innings, where the Southeast Stars would capitalize on a passed ball and score the game-winning run. 
The Southeast Stars faced adversity in the first game of the tournament, losing 5-2 to the Northwest Stars. They were able to bounce back and outscore their next two opponents, 9-3. The Southeast Stars' catcher, Bryan Arendt, credits his team's confidence as the catalyst for his team advancing to the gold medal game.
"We have been playing really well. Today, we pitched well, hit well and did a good job on the bases. We have a lot of confidence right now and that is showing in our team chemistry," said Arendt. "We are really confident going into Sunday's gold medal game. We experienced a loss early in the tournament and that is behind us. I believe that our pitching is going to be the reason we get a win on Sunday."
The gold medal game between the Northeast Stripes and the Southeast Stars will be played on Coleman Field at 2:00 pm ET on Sunday and streamed live on USABaseball.com and Facebook Live.
Continue to follow @USABaseballNTIS on Twitter and visit USABaseball.com for the most up-to-date news about the National Team Identification Series.