SURPRISE, Ariz. - In a pair of wild games in Surprise on Thursday afternoon, the SoCal Birds Orange and GBG National 2025 each walked it off in their respective semifinal contests and punched their tickets to the 16U National Team Championships Arizona gold-medal game.

The two will now battle with the top prize on the line on Friday, with first pitch set to take place at 11 A.M. MT at Surprise Stadium.

SoCal Birds Orange 4, JGB Rockstars 2025 3

At the end of an afternoon that saw the two teams traded blows back and forth all day long, the SoCal Birds Orange outlasted the JGB Rockstars 2025 4-3, with Sutton DeNinno playing the hero and walking it off in the game's final inning with a booming double that sent the team to it's first-ever Champs AZ gold-medal game.

The Birds offense got going right from the contest's opening frame, with the bats riding the momentum from their quarterfinal win just hours before to jump out to an early lead right away. A walk by Ryan Luce and a single by Kaden Carrion put the first two hitters of the game on base, and Dalton Chi cashed them in right after, driving a ball to the right-center field gap that brought home both and giving his team its first advantage of the day.

Blessed with this two-run cushion before he even stepped on the mound, Birds starter Cooper Berger toed the slab and was locked in early. The righty held his opposition scoreless through the first half of the game, striking out seven while giving up just a pair of base hits. The only real trouble that he ran into came in the fourth inning, when a walk and an error placed runners on second and third with just one out, but he stranded both by picking up two straight clutch strikeouts to keep the lead intact.

JGB finally got its offense going in the fifth, however, breaking through against a tiring Berger to go ahead for the first time all game. Two hit batsman put some traffic on the bases once again, and after a costly two-out error brought home one run and kept the inning going, Samuel Lopez took advantage by dumping a full-count pitch in front of the center fielder that scored two more and put the Rockstars out in front.

The Birds found themselves on the other side of things after this sudden turn of events, but after just one inning, they responded right back with a rally of their own. Kyle Nulph singled and stole second to get to scoring position all by himself, and on an 0-2 pitch with two outs, Dane Rhodes flipped a soft liner into right that popped out of the sliding fielder's glove, bringing home the run and tying things up going into the last inning.

Reliever Hudson Robin worked a perfect top of the seventh to swing the momentum fully back to the Birds, and after Luce reached second on an error to lead off the bottom half, the stage was set for DeNinno to end things. The cleanup hitter got an 0-1 breaking ball and drilled it into left field well beyond the grasp of any JGB fielders, easily bringing home the winning run and sending his teammates dogpiling onto him right in front of second base.

GBG National 2025 5, TB SoCal 4 (F/8)

After finding itself down to its last strike, GBG National 2025 pulled off a miraculous comeback to stun TB SoCal and advance to the gold-medal game, tying things up in the final inning of regulation before walking it off in extras.

Well before its late-game heroics at the end of the day, GBG National had to battle back from an earlier deficit right from the beginning of the game, as the TB SoCal bats got things going incredibly early. Leadoff hitter Hayden Woodson started things off by reaching scoring position via a hit-by-pitch and a groundout that moved him to second, and with two outs, Ryland Duson helped his team strike first blood by singling up the middle to bring Woodson home.

GBG National's response came two innings later, finally breaking through for the first time after coming up just short in its first few times at the plate. After an error and a double by Ethan Porter put a pair of runners in scoring position with one out, Angel Laya and Brady Ebel followed up by lining back-to-back base hits into right field, bringing the two runs in and wiping out the team's early deficit.

Now trailing for the first time since the first inning of its round of 32 game on Wednesday, TB SoCal quickly punched back in the fifth. The team put two runners in scoring position with one out in almost identical fashion to GBG's rally two innings earlier, but this time, Woodson brought home both on his own, lining a ball just inside the first-base line for a double that changed possession of the lead once more. Lucas Owens added another insurance run right after this, putting a deep fly ball into left field that helped Woodson -- who advanced to third on a wild pitch -- score and bring TB SoCal's advantage up to 4-2.

Things would stay like this until the seventh, which left GBG needing to make something for a second time. Porter helped get things going by torching a double into left field and advancing to third one batter later, but things started to look bleak when Ebel fell behind in the count 1-2 during his at-bat with two outs. The 15U National Team alumni came through with his back against the wall, though, beating out an infield single off the pitcher's glove to score Porter and keep the inning alive.

Grayson Boles and Aiden Aguayo followed up Ebel's tightrope act with a couple of big plate appearances themselves, reaching base via a single and a walk to load up the bases. This helped put the tying run on third, and on a 1-1 count the next at-bat, Ebel raced home on a wild pitch to level things up once again, sending his dugout into a frenzy.

International tiebreaker rules placed runners on first and second in the eighth inning, and GBG National once again pulled a rabbit out of its hat to escape this situation with no damage done against it. Pitcher Gavin Flores started off the frame by making an incredible play on a sacrifice bunt attempt, fielding the ball himself and firing to Ebel at third base to nab the lead runner and get a crucial first out. To follow this up, he induced a lazy fly ball for the second out and and ground ball for the third, escaping the situation unscathed and setting his team up perfectly to end the game.

Now with the momentum fully in its favor, GBG National wasted no time capitalizing where its opponents could not. On the first at-bat of the inning, pinch hitter *_Benjamin Gudoy *_lined a 2-2 pitch into left field, bringing home the runner from second and putting a cap on an incredible comeback with a walk-off winner that sent the team to the finals tomorrow morning.

Dugout Chatter

• "That's a testament to these guys. They did a phenomenal job staying in the game. They got down there late, but they came back and put together some really good at-bats. That's kind of been our thing all tournament. We've pitched well, played good defense, and came through with some clutch hitting." - GBG National Program Director Tate Caraway on how his team was able to mount its comeback effort at the end of its game.
• "I just think we need to stay with our plan. Continue to compete on the field, pitchers keep throwing strikes, keep playing defense, and the guys will keep hitting." - Caraway on what they need to do to take home the gold medal tomorrow.
• "First pitch curveball, I took it down the middle since I was sitting fastball and not trying to do too much, just trying to hit it to right-center. He hung another curveball and I took a swing on it and barreled it up. I knew it was going over the guy's head, didn't know if it was going out, but it ended up hitting off the wall." - SoCal Birds Orange cleanup hitter Sutton DeNinno on the at-bat leading up to his walk-off double.
• "Same thing we've been doing all week long. Everyone's contributing. Guys off the bench are getting good at-bats, pitching's been great, and we're having fun out here." - DeNinno on the team's mindset heading into the gold-medal game.

On Deck

• GBG National 2025 (8-0), the No. 4 seed, will take on the SoCal Birds Orange (8-0), the No. 6 seed, in the gold-medal game on Friday at 11 A.M. MT at Surprise Stadium.
• The JGB Rockstars 2025 (7-1), the No. 7 seed, will square off against TB SoCal (7-1), the No. 9 seed, for the bronze medal at 8 A.M. MT at Surprise Stadium.