Below is a story provided by the 14u Division 1 AAU State Champions, the Gunslingers. If your team would also like to provide an AAU State Championship story for us to put on the website you can email your story to bryan@sunshinesports.net. Thank you Gunslingers for your story!

Wow! What a game that was. The 14u Division 1 AAU State Championship game between the Gunslingers and the Sidewinders went 11 innings and was 4+ hours long. The boys on both teams played their hearts out and it was a battle to the end. For the Gunslingers, J.P. Parnell and Mikey Stewart did a phenomenal job pitching early in the game. The Gunslingers brought in Jerod Hudson in the bottom of the 6^th inning (after time had expired in the 5th inning) to pitch the final 6 innings of the game. After trailing most of the game, the Gunslingers tied it up in the fifth inning 3-3 with two runs scored by Alex Hanson and Brandon Grigsby. The game was tied from the 5th through the 11th inning until JP Parnell batted in Flabio Garcia for the go ahead run to give the Gunslingers a 4-3 lead. With Tyler Long catching and calling the pitches, Jerod Hudson held the Sidewinders in the bottom of the 11^th inning by striking out the last batter with bases loaded. With 6 strike-outs by Hudson and with the help of an extremely solid defense behind him, the Gunslingers held on to win it all. This was truly a team effort as there were some great 'web-gem' plays by various infielders and outfielders. The play of the game occurred in the bottom of the 10^th inning when it appeared as though the Sidewinders had won the game when their clean-up hitter Adam Mallet came up with a clutch two-out single into left field with Chad Miller on 2^nd base. But after a perfect relay, the bang-bang play at the plate went in favor of the Gunslingers; the call truly could have gone either way.

The Sidewinders did a phenomenal job and deserve plenty of praise as well. Jesus Palacios and Tyler Leonard pitched a great game for the Sidewinders and combined for nearly 10 innings pitched. Their team also had their own share of 'web-gems' behind them. Leading the Sidewinders offensively was Michael Brown who reached base 4 times with 2 walks, a single and a double. This was definitely a game to remember and everyone who was there will be talking about this one for a long time.