The 10U Ponte Vedra (PV) Thunder Travel Baseball team won the USSSA Northeast Florida State Championship in Lake City, FL May 21-22. The PV Thunder opened pool play on Saturday with a 12-8 win against the Columbia Shockers. The offense was led by Ethan Yesensky and Parker Gunnell who both hit homeruns. In the PV Thunder’s second game in pool play, the team tied the CSA Warhawks 7-7 to earn 4th seed for bracket play on Sunday.
In the first game of bracket play, the PV Thunder pounded out 13 runs against the Big Diamond Rockets, including eight runs in the first inning with Coston Crawley’s RBI hit and Ridge (James) Richardson creating havoc on the bases stealing second and scoring. The PV Thunder would ride the pitching arm of Dylan Driscoll who also hit a two-run double to win 13-5.
In the semi-final game against Keystone Baseball Academy, the PV Thunder battled on the pitching arm of Matt Hoag, but found themselves down early in the game. Dominic Masto started the offense with a triple in the second inning, scoring on an errant throw and Davis Handley hit a three-run homerun to tie the game 6-6 in the bottom of the fifth inning. Jake Guarnera would then hit in the winning run and the PV Thunder would advance to the championship game with a 7-6 win.
The PV Thunder offensive attack did not slow down in the Championship game against the Diamond Dreamz, as they jumped out to a 8-0 lead in the second inning led by Cade Eidam, who had three hits and scored three runs. The Diamond Dreamz offense was shut down by the pitching of Doran Moore and the PV Thunder would earn their first USSSA championship ring winning with a final score of 10-2.
Honorable mention to Davis Handley and Ethan Yesensky (2 HR) who were both named to the All-Tournament Team.
The 10U PV Thunder Travel Baseball program coached by Terrance Freeman, James Eidam, and Matt Masto practice and play their games at Davis Park in Ponte Vedra.
