[UW] 2021 United Wiffleball National Championship Tournament Recap

JUGGERNAUTS CAP OFF A MEMORABLE 2021 WITH A NATIONAL TITLE

A tournament champion can often point to one game – or even a singular moment – as the pivotal point of their victory. There is often that game where the soon-to-be champion goes from being one of several contenders with a chance to the team destined to win the title.

For the 2020 national champions, the Usual Suspects, that point came late Saturday evening when a fatigued Danny Lanigan dug deep to pitch and hit his team passed a tough (but equally exhausted) K-9’s squad in the Final 24. Winning that game with Lanigan on the rubber meant the Suspects entered Sunday with both of their top pitchers fresh, a manageable schedule, and their own destiny very much in their control.

For the 2021 national champions, the Juggernauts, the critical game of their run arrived in the quarterfinals when they faced Wiff Inc. Staring down a team and a group of players they battled all summer long, the Juggernauts found themselves one out away from a crushing 1-0 defeat. With one of the game’s best pitchers in Dan Whitener on the carpet, things looked grim for the future champs. That is when Tournament MVP Ben Stant sent a no-doubter over the netting and into the stadium seats on the featured field to breathe new life into his squad. Ryan McElrath kept the Wiff Inc. bats in check for three more innings until Stant walked things off with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the 8th inning.

The extra-innings victory versus their consummate rivals – at least in retrospect – was the principal moment of the Juggernauts’ tournament. Although the Juggernauts still had to battle two of the best teams in the field between the Whippets and NY Meats, the quarterfinal win set the tone for those games. Snatching a victory from the jaws of defeat does wonders for a team’s momentum and the Juggernauts appeared to be an unstoppable force from that point onward.

The Juggernauts finished the weekend with an unblemished 7-0 record. The quartet outlasted 43 other teams to win the largest national championship tournament in a quarter of a century (46 teams at the 1996 North American Championship in Cincinnati, Ohio). Not only was the field large, but it was diverse and representative of the current fast pitch competitive Wiffle®Ball scene. Players came from 28 different states with the middle of the country ­– a Wiffle®Ball hotbed underrepresented at the national championship for many years – showing up in record numbers, including seven teams from the greater Midwest and four teams from Texas.

The Juggernauts’ 2021 national title capped off a spring & summer where they went 29-8 (.784 winning percentage), won two open tournaments, finished atop the standings after six open tournaments, and won the Championship Tournament in Mid Atlantic Wiffle®. In doing so, the Juggernauts became the first team in many years - although far from the first - to parlay substantial spring & summer success as a team into a national title. The foursome finished 2021 with a 36-8 (.818) record, while winning four tournament titles in eight attempts.

It was an impressive accomplishment pulled off by a unique group of players.

For the McElrath twins (Ryan and Tim), capping off a full year of excellent play with a national championship has been a long time in the making.

The pair could lay claim to being part of the best full-year team anywhere in the country in 2017 and 2018 when their Giants team won back-to-back Palisades WBL titles. In 2018, the Giants nearly capped off their year with a national championship victory, ultimately exiting the Fast Plastic NCT in the semi-finals after a loss to the Phenoms. The brothers are known for their focus, intensity, and never-say-die attitude which served them well down the stretch in 2021. Ryan’s arm has taken a beating over the years ­– he threw much of that 2018 national championship with a bruised and discolored arm thanks to overuse ­– and at times in 2021 he did not look like his old self but rediscovered his magic in September and October. Ryan pitching the Juggernauts into the semi-finals on Sunday was paramount to the team’s success. Except for Jordan Robles, Ryan was arguably the most accomplished player of the last decade to have not won a fast pitch national championship prior to 2021.

The Juggernauts played as a team all year and won the national championship with a full team effort. Tim pitched significant quality innings on Saturday, Ryan effectively handled the underappreciated mid-tournament innings, and Chris “Red” Sarnowski shut the door at the end. Duplicating his regular season pitching results in October had largely eluded Red. He got that monkey off his back in grand fashion by throwing 8, 1-run innings versus the high-powered offenses of the Whippets and Meats to seal the deal for the Juggernauts. All members of the team contributed on offense, but Stant was clearly the difference maker thanks to two quarterfinals home runs and a finals grand slam, the latter of which put the championship game out of reach.

THE TOURNAMENT TURNING POINT

The quarterfinal round was not just pivotal for the champions, but in hindsight it was the key round of the entire two-day competition. Each quarterfinal matchup was hotly contested and a different result or two during that round would have likely flipped the tournament on its head.

Consider, for instance, the quarterfinal game between Ridley Park and the Lemonheads.

The Lemonheads squeaked out a 2-1 victory, thanks to the pitching (and hitting) of Ray Lutick. To win that game, the Lemonheads effectively shot their remaining bullets and had little left for the semi-finals. The Lemons attempted to sneak past Screw U in their first game of the tournament by starting soft tossing southpaw Pete Slater. The move backfired. Not only did the Jersey squad drop the opener and add two games to their schedule as a result, Stiles ended up pitching much of the Screw U game anyway en route to throwing all or parts of 5 games on Saturday and early Sunday. A fatigued Stiles could not hit the board with any consistency in the semi-finals, leaving the Lemons as easy picking for the Meats.

Had Ridley Park found a way to pull out a win versus the Lemonheads – and with the tying run on second and their best hitter, Cam Farro, at the plate in the 5th they nearly did – they were much more fully equipped pitching wise to take on the Meats. Noah Silverman had thrown only a tick more than one full game, Tommy Loftus had innings left, and Teddy Drecher had yet to touch the ball. Whether they would have beat the Meats is anyone’s guess, but it is a safe bet that the game would have been far more competitive than the alternative. A Juggernauts/Ridley Park final also stood to be a closer contest than the actual final, given both teams would have thrown relatively fresh pitchers.

Black Dog Country Club bowed out in the quarterfinals with 2020 team hero Colin Prentiss having thrown less than a full game. Had the 2020 runner ups defeated Whippets WC in their quarterfinal, they likewise would have been well-equipped for the stretch run. A nearly fresh Prentiss and BDCC’s short, dangerous line up would have presented a very different challenge for the Juggernauts in the semi’s then the one they faced from the Whippets.

In 2020 it was BDCC that knocked out the three-time champions, C4. This year, that honor went to the NY Meats in the quarterfinals. The Meats used a 4th inning grand slam from Kyle VonSchleusigen to win 5-1 and advance to the final four. Had C4 held on and faced a tired Lemonheads team in the semi-finals, the result – assuming no change in the other side of the bracket – would have likely been an interesting pitching matchup of Kevin Norris against Sarnowski in the finals.

Wiff Inc. was one out away from advancing to the final four instead of the Juggernauts. Dan Whitener exited that game for precautionary measures, making it likely that Connor Young would have at least started the semi-finals versus the Whippets. A Young/Dalbey pitching matchup figured to be a toss-up or leaning towards the Whippets, given the west coast squad’s relentless offensive attack. The winner of a Whippets/Wiff Inc. semi-final facing the Meats in the finals would have likely been a veritable coin flip.

WAVE OF THE FUTURE?

A pair of Texas teams – SETX Wiffle® and Can’t Touch This – had a combined six players on their rosters who were 15 years or younger at tournament time. Those two teams single handily made a dent in the average age of the competitors, but there was more to the wave of young or new teams that hit this year’s NCT than just those two squads from the Lone Star State.

There were many players under 25 years old who left a significant mark on the tournament, many of whom competed at the NCT for the first time. There were so many that to list them all would be impractical, but it was tough to miss the wave of younger or less prolific players making their mark. The long-term future, short-term future, and present of the sport was on full display at the tournament.

The inaugural United Wiffle®Ball National Championship one year ago welcomed a fresh influx of teams and players, but the top of the table looked eerily like prior years. The top eight from 2020 included four former national championship franchises (Usual Suspects, Black Dog Country Club, C4, Phenoms), two teams that reached the final 8 in one of the prior two years (OBombers, Bronx Royals), and a veteran squad (with one former national champion) in the Whippets. Only the Midwest Monstars and their players broke up the monotony.

Contrast with this year’s top 8 teams. The Whippets were there once again, and two former champs (C4, BDCC) were as well. However, the rest of the final 8 was refreshingly unique, with many fresh faces and high-level players under 25-years old. It is premature to talk about a changing of the guard, but the fresh composition of the top 8 teams was impossible not to notice and reflects the expansion of the sport at the national level. In addition to the final 8, the MLW All-Stars, Bad Batch, Claws, and High Rollers reached the final 16 with substantially youthful rosters and/or many players making their NCT debuts.

HERE AND THERE

Saturday games were 4-inning contests for the 2nd year in a row. Despite that, the amount of extra-inning games played on Saturday – out of 96 total games – could be counted on one hand (with a finger or two left over) . . . One Saturday game that did go extras was the opening game match up between a pair of Philly-area teams in the Longballs and Bombers. The newbie Bombers (playing in only their second tournament) played 5 scoreless innings versus the veteran Longballs before losing a heartbreaker in 6-innings. Southpaw Tyler Leonhardt has legit stuff and the Bombers are a summer of offensive repetitions away from becoming a consistently competitive team . . . The most talented teams to not reach Sunday were pair of Midwest squads in the Cardinals (MO) and WSEM Dream Team (MI). The Cardinals tempted fate by holding ace Cam Smith back. They paid for their choice when they fell to 2-2 in Route 1 and handed Smith the ball in Route 2 (where he went 2-1), but it was too little, too late to get them through. The short-handed WSEM squad was one run away from reaching Sunday for the second straight year, but the red-hot Lucas Francis put an end to that throwing a 5-inning shutout and walking things off to end the Dream Team’s tournament in heartbreaking fashion . . . Although records are too incomplete to know for sure, SETX Wiffle® *likely* became the youngest team to pick up a win at a NCT when the squad of 13-year-old players defeated Old Line WC in a shootout Saturday morning . . . There are many nominees for “Game of the Tournament”, but that honor goes to the Bridge Round game pitting New Jersey’s Way Too Beautiful against west coast powerhouse Whippets WC. Both team’s put on an offensive show versus quality pitching, with the Whippets advancing in extra innings with an 11-10 final . . . ]Despite one final 8 finish, one final 4 finish, and three national titles in the last 5 years, C4 has lost one game in the preliminary rounds in each of those tournaments . . . The High Rollers are among several teams with strong tournaments who may have flown under the radar. The New England Club were upset by the York Yaks in their second game, but fought back to reach the final 16 and exited the tournament with a solid 4-2 record . . . For the 2nd straight year, the third-string Ridley Park Wiffle®Ball League team went on a run. In 2020, it was the Cheeseballs who reached the final 8. This year, Bad Batch – led by rookie Brendan Boas – went 3-0 on Saturday to finish in the top 16 . . . BWBL’s Slaughterhouse went 3-4, following up on the 2020 event where they quietly played to a solid 2-3 record. Led by the Caladie brothers - and boosted by quality innings from Steve Dotzel in 2021 - Slaughterhouse is a break or two away from a future final 16 appearance . . . The MLW All-Stars received some pessimistic predictions from pundits for their first NCT, but they proved they were anything but in over their head. The All-Stars held Wiff Inc. close in a 3-0 loss, took care of business in their next two games, defeated MO Wiff Miracle in the Bridge Round, and ended their tournament at 3-2 with a loss to the eventual champions.