GameChanger of the Week – 7/10
Spencer Wright· · Leave a Comment
We’re already accepting nominations for next week. Email GameChanger.Featured.Team@gmail.com with a picture and link to your team.
The newest GameChanger Team of the Week belongs to the Ola Impact 10U Select, from McDonough, Georgia. Playing through 104 degree heat at the Georgia USSSA State Rec/All Star State Tournament, the girls battled for two days.
After losing their two seeding games, they also lost the first game of double elimination bracket play by a score of 4-3. Having lost three straight games to start the tournament, things looked bleak heading into the second and final day.
The Impact’s early morning results turned out well, a 13-0 crushing followed by a close 5-4 win. After a mere 10 minutes to regroup, the Impact played their next game which went into extra innings. In the last frame, they scored 6 runs to tie the game and held the other team scoreless (with bases loaded, one out no less) to send the game into extra innings. Their bats stayed hot scoring three more runs in the top half of the extra inning, but again their opponents threatening, scoring two runs and loading the bases with only one out. But the Impact defense came up big and they emerged with the 12-11 victory.
Another victory against the Sharpsburg All-Stars, the team that sent the Impact into the losers bracket, meant that the Impact were in the Loser’s Bracket Final. Alas, this amazing run finally came to an end, as the girls succumbed to the 104 degree heat and the exhaustion of playing 5 games in one day (4 of which had less than 10 minutes in between them). The Ola Impact came away with the 3rd Place Trophy and a triumphant story of being down but never out.
Honorable Mentions:
Chase Solesky threw a complete game shut-out for the 16U Worcester Heat with 5 k’s in 7 innings pitched, aided by a very impressive 75.7% FPS%. Oh, and he’s only 14 years old.
The Ocala Rotary Rampage won the 9U Cal Ripken Florida State Championship going undefeated in double elimination play. They scored 46 runs in 4 games.
The Greenville North State 10-11 All-Stars won their Little League District 4 Tournament in Greenville, NC to advance to the North Carolina State Tournament. The best fact about this team? In their first game, every single player had a Quality At-Bat (22 total).
