By George Templeton

The rematch between the Blue Springs Classic and Chet Lemon’s Juice in the championship final was a lot more competitive than there earlier meeting, but the result was still the same.

Noah Dyal pitched a two-hit shutout and Tyrone Perry hit his fifth home run of the tournament as the top-seeded Juice finished its unbeaten run with a 4-0 victory over the second-seeded Classic. By winning the AAU 12-U Division I Championship, the Juice advance to the 12-U National Youth Baseball Championships Aug. 21-24 in Memphis.

“We’re excited to be playing in a tournament like that,” said Juice manager Chet Lemon. “We’re happy to represent AAU in that tournament and try to uphold its reputation as one of the best youth organizations.”
Dyal struck out seven for the complete game win and got all the runs he needed when Nicolas Gordon and Jordan Purnell scored on a two-out error by the second basemen in the first. Perry’s homer made it 3-0 and Forrest Walls tripled and scored on a throwing error for the final margin.

“We only gave up one run, so it’s tough to lose like that,” said Classics manager Tim Pogue. “Our kids didn’t give up. They beat us 12-1 yesterday and we battled them today. We’ve had a good season and I think we will comeback strong.”

Dyal surrendered two singles in the third inning and faced his only real trouble in the game, runners at second and third with two out. Dyal induced a groundout to end the threat and cruised home.
“He was under control the whole game,” Lemon said. “When we get pitching like that, that’s tremendous.”
Chet Lemon’s Juice never let up in bracket play, hammering its opponents 53-7.

“Once we found out about the tournament in Memphis, that was our goal from the start,” Lemon said. “You always want to have a goal to push and motivate these kids and that was it. We played phenomenal baseball all week. There was a lot of tough competition here, the Classics were every bit the champion team we thought they were.”

In the losers bracket final, J.T. Hayes belted a two-run homer and Hunter Mason singled in the game-winning run to give the defending-champion Blue Springs Classics a 3-2 victory over the 9th-seeded Florida Phoenix.
The Phoenix scored two in the first, but the Classics stormed back in the fourth inning. Dalton Moats led off the inning with a bunt hit and Hayes took the first pitch he saw and blasted a game-tying two-run homer to right field. David Stober then walked, stole second and took third on a throwing error. After two groundouts Mason singled to right field to score the winning run.
“Our reliever got too much of the plate and their kid hit it out,” Phoenix coach Jerry Tonini said.

The loss ended the Florida Phoenix’s remarkable run through the losers bracket. After losing 6-4 to RBI Baseball Tuesday morning, the Phoenix won five consecutive do or die games over the next 28 hours.
“With that these kids have been through, winning five in a row in the losers bracket wasn’t anything,” Tonini said. “From January (to June) we played two tournaments a week and played over 50 games. I found 12 kids I liked and they worked their tails off all year to get to this point.”

The final day of play started with a losers bracket semifinal between Wednesday’s comeback kings, the Florida Phoenix and the Tidewater Drillers. It was the Drillers, seeded 11th, that broke out on top with three runs in the first, but the Phoenix clawed back to win the game 6-4. The Phoenix began its comeback with two runs in the fourth and struck the big blow in the fifth inning.

In the fifth, the Phoenix loaded the bases with one out on two bloop singles and a single over the second-base bag. Keith Weisenberg tied the game with an RBI single, then after a strikeout, Leonell Ledesma stepped up and smacked a three-run double to left field to give the Phoenix the win. Ledesma finished with 4 RBI and was the winning pitcher with three shutout innings in relief.

The Division II national championship was made up of the eight teams that didn’t qualify for the Division I championship bracket. The Pirates of the Commonwealth (Midlothian, Va.) won the title with a 4-3 victory over the Teaneck (N.J.) Titans. Cory Morris’ two-run homer in the fourth inning gave the Pirates the lead for good, and Derek Murphy added two doubles and two RBI. Cameron Francis backed up that offense with a complete-game two hitter.

Losers bracket semifinal:
No. 9 Florida Phoenix 6, No. 11 Tidewater Drillers 4

Losers bracket final:
No. 2 Blue Springs Classics 3, No. 9 Florida Phoenix 2

Championship round:
No. 1 Chet Lemon's Juice 4, No. 2 Blue Springs Classic 0

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