Florida Fire win ASA 16s fastpitch nationals

Assorted Sports Equipment on Black
Assorted Sports Equipment on Black

The Florida Fire started out very cold in the ASA 16-under girls' fastpitch national tournament this past week in Chattanooga. But once they got hot, they stayed ablaze.

The team from the Tampa suburb of Brandon completed a 9-0 run in double-elimination play Sunday with a 2-0 defeat of the Williamsburg (Va.) Starz Gold in the championship game of the ASA's biggest national event. Its 181 teams broke the record of 172 set when the ASA 16s last came to Chattanooga in 2011, according to tournament director Kim Swafford, with entries spanning the nation from Washington State, Oregon and California to New Hampshire and down the Eastern Seaboard.

The Florida Fire didn't even go to an ASA national last year, and they sustained run-rule losses in both their pool games as the week began in Chattanooga.

"Those games didn't count," joked coach Tony Moritz, who had extra reason to be proud in the final because his daughter, Peyton, went 2-for-3 and was instrumental in both runs. She wound up on third as the Fire's leadoff batter in the fourth, as her single got past the right fielder, and scored when Elsie Rivera hit a sacrifice fly - after missing a sign for a suicide squeeze bunt.

In the sixth, the Fire's Morgan Slater reached base on a dropped throw on her one-out bunt, and then Peyton Moritz singled to center field and Edmilly Molina singled up the middle.

Claire Feldman was dominant in the circle for the national championship after also pitching her high school team to a state title this year.

Keely Richard pitched well for the Starz, who beat a Virginia rival, the Hanover Lady Hornets, 7-5 in the losers-bracket final. The Hornets had sent the Starz to the losers bracket, where they played three games each of the last three days.

The Starz began Sunday with a 5-4 win after trailing 4-1 to the local Tennessee Fury Platinum.

"I'm super proud of these girls and how hard they played in the losers bracket," Starz coach Tom Bunn said. "We were down to our last strike three times and won - twice in the same game against the Fury."

Leadoff batter Makenna Helton was 3-for-4 and scored twice for the Fury, and Haeli Bryson and Sammi Miller scored the other runs from the Nos. 2 and 3 spots.

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