After outscoring its opponents 36-9 through the first three games of pool play at the 14U National Team Championships Arizona, Prime ran into its first real test of the tournament against Matadors 2027.

The two teams came into Monday's seeded game with undefeated records, and it looked like it would be the Matadors that would retain theirs at the outset, as they jumped on the board with two runs in the top of the first. Like they've done all week long, though, the Prime hitters caught fire quickly to erase this deficit right away. Joseph Valdivia followed up back-to-back leadoff walks in the bottom half of the frame with a line drive into center field that scored one run, and two batters later, Benjamin Mazariegos smoked a double into right that brought home two more and gave the team its first lead.

Prime's offense continued to be relentless from there. Valdivia and Mazariegos got things going again in the third when the latter drove in the former with a hard-hit single, and one inning later, it put up a three spot thanks to a pair of errors and a sacrifice fly by Cole McGregor. This brought Prime's lead up to five, and as it turned out, this would be all the scoring the team would need. The Matadors gave the team a scare when they pushed three runs across in the final frame and put the tying run into scoring postion, but reliever Ethan Scheel came up big by inducing a pop out to slam the door shut.

With the win on Monday, Prime advanced to a 4-0 record with a +27 run differential throughout the first portion of the tournament, a showing that will likely grant them one of the highest seeds in the playoff bracket that starts on Wednesday. After closing things out, coach Rene Leal spoke to USA Baseball about this hot start, his team's excellent performance with the bats so far, and why he thinks his players are prepared for the pressures of their upcoming elimination games:

Q: That one got a little dicey at the end, but you guys got it done in the end to advance to 4-0. What did you think of your performance today and throughout all of pool play?

A: [Andrew] Metz came in today and pitched even though he's not even really a pitcher for us, but he ended up throwing 92 pitches and did a great job keeping them off balance. They're a good team. Edgar does a great job with that club, but today we were a little bit better. We had some timely hits that we really capitalized on.

Q: Your first three games before this one were blowouts. How does a game like this where it goes down to the wire prepare you for the elimination games to come?

A: We've been in a lot of close games with this group. We've had them since they were 12 years old, so this is our third season with these young guys. They've been battle tested, and I tell this to everybody, I think they're probably the biggest project there is in our program. I think they have a chance to win gold like we did a couple weeks ago, I really do.

Q: The offense has been working really well for you guys, with three double-digit scoring games before this one and then seven more runs today. What have you seen from their approaches at the plate that have helped that?

A: They've been staying in the strike zone and swinging at strikes. I know they're 14 and a lot of kids want to swing at everything and try to do too much, but they're just playing the game. They're being themselves and not trying to do something that they're not capable of doing.

Q: You said they've made deep runs before, but this is their first time in the elimination stage at this specific tournament. How do you think you'll prepare them for that, and do you think they're ready for that going forward?

A: I think we're ready. This team is good on pitching. We still have four or five horses that can pitch here, so I think our chances are good. If we have some timely hits, a little bit of luck, and a whole lot of prayer, we'll be good.