10U Cannons finish ninth out of 97 teams in national tournament
By Dan Roem
Prince William County does not have quite a national reputation for being a baseball haven.
In fact, only one 10-years-and-under travel team from all of Virginia was even ranked in the top 25 on Travelbaseballselect.com as of June 27.
Yet the 10U Gainesville Cannons were picked from more than 3,000 teams in the country to join an elite tournament of 97 squads that competed at a Cooperstown invitational tournament June 14-19.
And those kids from Bristow, Haymarket, Gainesville and Warrenton actually finished in the top 10.
Cannons manager Troy Toureau explained on Monday how it all went down.
“I didn’t really know what to expect going in except…there were going to be a lot of really good teams,” said the head coach.
His boys did know that they were going to be up against some of the best teams in the country.
“Going in, although we can compete in almost any tournament that we enter, we’re not considered a national presence by any means,” Toureau said.
They would also have the grueling task of being assigned to play eight games in a four-day period. So the Cannons conditioned during the off-season with a regimen of sit-ups and push-ups at the end of each practice.
Before it came time for the Cannons to compete in upstate New York, Matt Scott got things going for Gainesville with a tied-for-sixth-place finish in the pre-tournament Road Runner competition by circling the bases as fast as he could run.
A six-game round-robin determined seeding for the tournament. Gainesville beat four teams by a combined score of 40-8 and lost 2-1 in seven innings to the Palm Desert Crush of California and 4-3 to the West Pine Nike Cobras of Florida., the then-ranked No. 5 team in the country.
Shane Buss even managed a complete-game win in a 12-2 match against the Palmyra Cougars. Landon Avila collected three hits while teammates Tanner Heltibridle, James Beasley and Garrett Cook each smacked two.
Gainesville’s 4-2 record coupled with the team giving up an average of only 2.2 runs per game solidified a No. 22-seed for the Cannons heading into the bracket play.
They capitalized on that high seed with slaughter-rule drubbings in rounds one and two, including a no-hitter thrown by Buss.
“From a pitching and defensive standpoint, we played as well as anybody that was there,” opined Toureau.
But Gainesville faced a much-tougher North Central Florida team in the third round.
With the game tied 2-2 in the bottom of the sixth, Avila smashed a double over the left fielder’s head and made it to third base on a throwing error.
Toureau then called for a bunt but the ball from the Mustangs’ pitcher hit the dirt. Avila began to advance home when he realized North Central Florida’s catcher had picked up the ball.
Instead of trying to force Avila into a run-down, he threw it toward the third baseman. Avila then dashed to the plate, sliding under the catcher’s tag to win the game.
“Everybody celebrated,” said Toureau, adding that his boys all met Avila at home plate.
However, Gainesville was already late for their next match against the nationally-ranked East Cobb Astros of Georgia.
“You could tell the kids at that point were a little slacked,” reckoned the coach.
East Cobb held a 1-0 lead all the way through the sixth inning because of what the Gainesville coach described as “some really incredible plays in the field.
“Austin Gerber led off the game with a line-drive smack that would have gone down the left field line and the third baseman came out of nowhere and stabbed it,” said Toureau. “They pretty much played a flawless game.”
Even with runners in scoring position, Gainesville just could not execute well enough to bring them around, losing 1-0.
Gainesville managed to finish the tournament with a No. 9 ranking because, of the eight other Sweet 16 teams that missed the Elite 8, none had a lower average of runs-allowed per game.
“We got to finish games,” said Toureau of why his team did not manage to go even further at Cooperstown. “We let a lot of these teams that we had beat get back into the games, and let them beat us.”
Something became clear to Toureau after the tournament ended, though.
“I think these 10 year olds are a lot smarter than you might think. They know when they should have won games they should have won,” he said, later adding, “I think we can play with anybody.”