The first week of USA Baseball\u2019s National Team Championships Arizona have come to a close after a nail biting extra-inning, 1-0, thriller that saw GBG National come away as champions to put an exclamation mark on an electric opening week out west. <\/p>\n
With the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth and nobody out, GBG National\u2019s Taylor Dodd came to the plate with the potential of a gold medal on the other side of his plate appearance. <\/p>\n
While being down in the count 0-2, Dodd shortened his swing and laced a ground ball through the left side of the infield and into the grass to plate the winning run and send his team into pandemonium. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor me. It was just another at-bat. I just went up there to have some fun,\u201d said Dodd. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as I saw that pitch, my first thought was just to punch it out there. I saw it sneak through, and I honestly blacked out a little bit, that was a great feeling.\u201d <\/p>\n
The walk-off winner from Dodd highlighted one of the tournament’s most impressive performances, as he racked up 12 hits across eight games to lead all qualified hitters tournament wide. <\/p>\n
Fellow late game heroics from GBG National featured pitcher Cody Moseman in relief after an outstanding start from Kyle McMilan that featured 6.0 shutout innings.<\/p>\n
Swarm Red Elite began to apply pressure to GBG pitcher Maverick Bolen, and Moseman was then called upon in relief. He inherited a bases-loaded two-out scenario in the top of the seventh with the game hanging in the balance. <\/p>\n
While going to take the mound, the coaching staff instilled confidence in Moseman, telling him \u201cyou’re the man, you’re the man for the job, you’re the man for the situation.\u201d <\/p>\n
Just 90 feet away from Swarm Red taking the lead, Moseman issued a strikeout looking to escape the inning and keep things knotted at zero.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200b\u200bI know that each individual is absolutely outstanding on the field, and no matter what, these guys have my back,\u201d said Moseman. <\/p>\n
The high-pressure situations for Moseman continued, toeing the rubber in the eighth inning with the tiebreaker rule of runners starting on second and first in order.<\/p>\n
He was able to cleanly work through the inning after striking out the side with an emphatic fist pump on his way back to the dugout in celebration. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what we’re made of. This is our culture,\u201d said Moseman. \u201cThese guys have my back, I have theirs, and no matter what, we will compete our butts off even in the toughest situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The clutch performances across the board lifted No. 1 overall seed GBG National to its second gold medal at Champs Arizona, after previously winning the 15U division in 2023. <\/p>\n
The perfect 8-0 run included an eye-popping +51 run differential, outscoring opponents 62-11 and recording six shutouts in the eight wins for head coach Michael Garciaparra\u2019s squad. <\/p>\n
\u201cCoach Freddy Sanchez and I have been doing this a couple years together. I’ve been doing this for about 13-14 years, and we said from the first game to the second game that this was the most unselfish group we’ve ever had,\u201d said Garciaparra.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes down to this USA event, it doesn’t matter who you play. Everybody’s legit, everybody’s tough, that’s why we come to this event. Our pitching staff was outstanding all week, they just threw strikes, minimized walks, our defense minimized mistakes, our bats came to play all week and now we\u2019re leaving with gold.\u201d <\/p>\n
Earlier in the morning, CBA Marucci earned bronze in a 3-0 win over GBG Vegas to round out the podium that featured GBG National\u2019s gold medal and Red Swarm Elite\u2019s silver. <\/p>\n
Champs Arizona will roll on with the 15U age division set for action from June 17-21 at the Peoria Sports Complex and Surprise Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first week of USA Baseball\u2019s National Team Championships Arizona have come to a close after a nail…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-706243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}