Club Championship: PGF 18U Premier Title Goes to the Thunderbolts Energized by Great Pitching & Home Run Blows (July 30, 2022)

The 2022 PGF 18U Premier National Championship was a contrast in recognized teams, as the Birmingham Thunderbolts team was composed of seniors and juniors going to the ACC, Pac-12 and SEC while the Select team had five players who were all going to Missouri together.

The Bolts, from Alabama, are led by Coach Rocky Thompson and were one of the powerhouse favorites going in; on the flip side, the Select, a talented team from Kansas City led by highly-respected coach Eric Jones, weren’t as well known, but showed that they could compete with anyone this week in Southern California.

Both teams also had top-notch pitching as Select Fastpitch has been led by Marissa McCann, a 2023 grad who won state two years in a row for Willow Canyon High of Sunrise, Arizona and has signed Missouri, while the Thunderbolts started standout senior Alea (pronounced “A-Lee”) Johnson, a 2022 grad who has signed with LSU.

The Bolts had hits in each of the first two innings, but couldn’t string together anything and saw Select put the first run on the board when Taylor Cruse, a 2023 outfielder committed to Ohio State, walked with no outs, advanced to second on a passed ball and scored on a double deep to the centerfield wall by 2022 outfielder Emma Durr, a Nebraska-Omaha signee.

McCann continued to impress in the circle for Select but in the top of the 4^th the Bolts broke through offensively, evening the game when 2023 Alabama commit Kenleigh Cahalan, a lefty infielder, smashed a deep home run over the right field fence to set the score at 1-1.

The title game for the PGF 18U Premier crown remained tied until the top of the 6^th when the Bolts moved out its first lead of the game when the leadoff hitter reached on an error, was sacrificed to second, moved to third on a passed ball and then scored on a wild pitch to put the Alabama team ahead for the first time at 2-1.

That was followed by another home from an Alabama Crimson Tide-bound standout as Marlie Giles, the 2022 catcher, hit a smash that cleared the left field fence to give the Bolts a 3-1 lead from which they’d never trail.

Interviewed after the game, both future Tide teammates admitted they knew the balls they hit were home runs as soon as they made contact.

In the bottom half of the 6^th, 2022 grad Charli Orsini—who is from Australia and is headed to Tennessee—came in to pitch in relief of Alea who only gave up two hits in five innings of work but had been used a lot in the previous games.

Johnson, who said her curve ball was working well today, had pitched two shutouts heading into today’s championship game and ended the PGF Nationals with only one earned run allowed in her last 19 innings.

“I was confident because of the great defense behind me,” she said after the win.

The competitive Select team out of Kansas City, though, never gave up as it loaded the bases with two outs and brought up the potential winning run at the plate, but after a pitching change brought in Makenna Raye Dark, a 2022 grad signed with North Carolina, she induced a ground out to first base that ended the threat and immediately led to a dogpile of Bolts players in the infield.

“This team wanted this from the beginning and that’s what made it special,” said Coach Thompson. “They made it their goal of winning the PGF championship–not just going to PGF, but winning it. We’ve had some great teams (in previous years) but this was the first group that said, ‘We are winning PGF!’”

— Brentt Eads, Extra Inning Softball

Here’s a brief clip of the final out and celebration that ensued as the Bolts won the PGF 18U Premier title: