On Monday, The Show National fully lived up to its name at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina. In the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds of the 16U National Team Championships, the team put on the most captivating show of any team in the postseason bracket on the way to berth in the gold medal game on Tuesday.
Matching up against them will be Aces National, which saw its playoff hopes potentially grounded after a tough loss in the team’s second game. But the team battled hard to clinch a playoff spot, and is now living up to its own name as well by soaring into the gold medal game after reaching a new level in the playoffs themselves.
The Show National smashed its way into the title game with a 10-2 semifinal win in five innings over USA Prime National, scoring in every inning as the offense simply could not be contained. A double and sac fly in the first inning put The Show up 2-0 in the opening inning, and the team never looked back. A single in the second kept the momentum rolling, followed by another RBI single from Troy Southisene and a massive three-RBI double from Delon Cole in the third inning to give The Show a commanding 7-1 advantage.
In the fourth inning, The Show got its final three runs with a Luke Manderson RBI single, a hit batter with the bases loaded, and wild pitch to go up 10-2 and end the game early. Ten runs is the most scored by The Show this week; after a slow start, and despite the stakes becoming higher, the team has been getting better offensively in every game. The team plated two, three, and four runs, respectively, in each of its opening three games. It scored six in a quarterfinal win over Canes National and were unstoppable against USA Prime in the semifinals.
“The umpire zones are big league zones, so we’ve adjusted our pitch selection. You can’t go into an at-bat hitting these pitchers’ fastballs, curveballs and off-speed pitches every pitch,” The Show’s head coach Cam West said postgame in regard to his hitters elevating as the tournament has gone on. “You’ve got to be able to have better discipline of pitch selection and hitting in certain zones, and that’s what they started to buy into. They took advantage of the one pitch they needed to hit.”
As good as the offense has been for The Show in its last two games, the pitching has been the real attraction. In the opening game, a 2-1 win over the Padres Scout Team, Gerant Vega went six innings and allowed just three hits as he struck out six. Corwin Allard struck out four and allowed two hits in five innings during a 3-1 win over SC Panthers Marucci, and Jordan Haver led the staff in a 4-3 win over Sticks Baseball with eight punchouts and two hits allowed.
Jake Carbaugh took that to another level in the semifinals, no-hitting Canes National as he dazzled with eight strikeouts in seven innings. While Julian Garcia didn’t quite reach those heights in his semifinal start, he did limit a USA Prime team that scored 10 runs in the quarterfinals to just three hits in four innings as he retired five batters. West couldn’t speak highly enough of both his pitching staff and pitching coach Cameron West after the game.
“Every one of our starters have been able to land three pitches for a strike. I'd like for you to know one of our best coaches in our organization, Cameron West. He's been locked in on every pitch call the entire game. We've got an advantage with Cam calling pitches,” said West. “We have a no-ego pitching staff. We always talk about what we see with the hitters, what pitch is throwing well, what pitch is not doing well, and then we make the best decision in the moment to set our defense for success. Our pitchers have executed, and we've had guys right there to make the plays.”
In the postseason, seemingly all of the players have been making the right plays after a couple of close games to open the first two days of play. They’ll need to keep doing that in the gold medal game against an Aces National team that also happens to be finding its best form of the tournament at the right time.
Following a rocky start that featured a 2-1 opening win over Top Tier Select and then a 7-2 loss to MLB Breakthrough, Aces National took down a dangerous Canes National side 3-2 to earn a postseason berth. Downing the MBA Scout Team 6-1 in the quarterfinals, Aces National showed its championship mettle in a thrilling 7-5 win over Alpha Prime in the semis.
Going up 1-0 in the third inning on an RBI double from Cameron Borthwick, Aces National added two more runs to the lead in the top of the sixth inning thanks to an error and a sac fly. It looked like the team would cruise into the final until Alpha Prime broke out of its slump in the bottom of the sixth inning, scoring a pair of runs on three hits and loading the bases thanks to a pair of errors. With no outs and the bases loaded, it suddenly looked like Alpha Prime had turned the tables.
But Lyndan Flanary, who entered the game in relief to an impossible tricky situation, had other plans. Forcing a pop out on the first batter he faced, Flanary struck out the next hitter he faced. A fielder’s choice later, and Aces National had escaped with the lead intact, 3-2.
The Aces’ offense was back in business in the top of the seventh again, motivated to restore the lead. It did just that with four runs in the inning, first from a sacrifice fly and then through a two-RBI single from Jalen Moton and an RBI double from Colton Guillot. Up 7-2, the Aces withstood another comeback attempt from Alpha Prime in the bottom of the seventh inning to claim the win.
“The biggest thing we preach about is to hold the line, and we trust our guys when they get put in that situation; they’ve been in that situation multiple times,” Aces head coach Michael Chambers said postgame. “We have trust in them. When guys have trust in you and you have trust in them, the outcome is normally pretty positive.”
Chambers has had full trust in his players to bounce back from their loss to MBA Scout Team, and they’re now one win away from the gold medal as a result.
"Blue collar, that's what it's about. It's not about where you rank in the world. It's about what you do on the field. And I think a bunch of local boys have proved that, and they're here. They're here to win it all.”
To do that, Chambers’ crew will have to go through a Show team that still has another level it can reach, according to Cam West.
“We've added a few players for this event, and they've started to mix in well, and I feel relaxed because everybody's kind of settled in. They're expecting and playing to win. Every day, there's going to be a new guy that makes the or has the biggest hit, a different guy that's going to have success,” West said. “That's the brilliance of this team. When you have that culture and that expectation, it takes pressure off of our kids. So now, coming out tomorrow, I'm expecting our top of our lineup to absolutely have a ball tomorrow, our 1-2-3 hitters especially.”
Nothing will be guaranteed in the title game, however, Chambers spoke postgame about when you play baseball, beautiful things can happen. His ‘small town baseball’ team has continued to prove it belongs, and on Tuesday will have the chance to prove it is the best of the best here in Cary.
“I can't wait for tomorrow,” West noted with a smile as he left the semifinals behind.
