One Last Amazing Run:
The WWBA World Championships is the final tournament hosted by Perfect Game each year. It is by invite only and host the best players in America. IT IS THE SINGLE LARGEST SCOUTING EVENT IN THE COUNTRY. The past few years the Elite Squad has entered as the RedSox Scout team. A team hand picked by local Red Sox scouts that were draft eligible that year and had the possibility of being drafted. This year because of a change in the RedSox scouting department and new sponsorship with Louisville Slugger, Elite Squad stuck to its “South Florida Elite Squad” name although the team had already been hand picked. Most of the players had played in the Elite Squad Organization before being picked up for this tournament but it did have some new faces that certainly helped on this amazing run. 
Elite Squad, won their pool by going 3-0 and headed into the playoffs and faced the HomePlate Chili dogs from Ga. ’14 LHP Brian Gonzalez (UM Commit) , ’13 RHP Matt Hardy (NSU Commit) and ’14 RHP Devin Meyer combined for a no hitter through 7 innings of work. The fire works didn’t happen until the bottom of the seventh with 1 out and runners on 1st and 2nd when ’13 David “PeeWee” Palenzuela lined a walk off Double into the left center gap scoring the winning run from 2nd base.
Heading into the 3rd game of the day for the Squad ’14 RHP Mark Nowatnick took the ball in the sweet 16 vs the All American Prospects. The bats for the Squad woke up and another great pitching performance was delivered by the junior right-hander allowing only 2 hits over 5 innings of work in what was a 9-0 mercy rule advancing them into the Elite 8 round of the playoffs. The win was to be short lived as now after 3 games, and being on the field since 9am – 11:00pm the Squad had to play at 8:00 am the next morning.
’13 LHP Christian Peleaz (LUS Commit) took the mound for the Squad and kept up the level of the pitching staff had displayed all weekend by shutting down the Dirtbags from NC in an 11-0 win.
Before moving on to the Final Four game of the tournament, take a look back at the playoff games where the Elite Squad team had thrown 3 straight shutouts vs their opponents and out scored them 22-0. As baseball, and only in this game of baseball would have it, the Elite Squad would give up their one and only run in the Final Four and that was the only game in the tournament the Squad lost eliminating them and handing them a 3rd place finish. Its impossible to list every single player as each one of them had eye opening performances this event. Took look at the full roster click here.
What an amazing run it was. This is what is regarded to most baseball enthusiast as the most talented tournament of the year. For those that havent been to it before, we suggest you go next year. Get there early because every game is packed with golf carts from Major league Scouts, Scouting Directors, GM’s and Colleges.
Not only was this an amazing run at the biggest tournament of the year, but what an amazing career most of the seniors on this team accomplished. Most of these kids were in the Elite Squad Program since they were Freshman’s in High School. Now Seniors, they have PLENTY to be proud about. Take a look at what they accomplished:
2011 Junior Olympic/Team USA Gold Medalist
2011 Perfect Game WWBA 16u National Champions (East Cobb)
2011 AAP Invitational Champions
2011 #1 National Ranking
2012 Perfect Game 17u World Series Champions
2012 Perfect Game WWBA World Championships (3rd Place)
Elite Squad Baseball would like to take the time out to thank these amazing players and families for all of their support and dedication over the past few years! We are sad to say good bye to a great group but are very excited about the future and the players in it to follow the footsteps that you created.
