In a battle of 18U powers, Georgia Impact – Taylor took on the defending champs, Arizona Rising – Appel, on Saturday for the PGF 18U Premier National Championship held at Bill Barber Stadium in Irvine, Calif.

Arizona Rising didn’t waste any time, taking a 1-0 lead in the top of the first when Ella Ford (Clemson), the home run star from Friday when she had two homers including a walk-off in a crucial bracket game, scored the first run of the Premier title match on a double play turned in the infield.

In the bottom of the second, Addie Rackley, the pitcher/infielder signed with LSU, walked to start the inning but after going 3-0 on CeCe Springfield (Auburn signee) Rising starting pitcher Goose Goodwin (Northwesters) came back to strike her out on three straight pitches and then struck out Kadyn Gabrels (South Carolinba) to appear to have escaped serious damage.

But the inning wasn’t over as Taylor Surratt, the Auburn-bound catcher, had a two-out single to right to advance Rackley to third.

Then came a huge swing play as Sydney Gonglik, a new addition to the team as an LSU-signed pitcher/hitter, hit a towering fly ball to center at the fence that it looked like Ford in centerfielder would catch but the ball popped out of her glove allowing the two runners on base to score and allow Gonglik to come all the way around to put the home-team Impact ahead 3-1.

The Impact would extend the lead with four more runs in the bottom of the third highlighted by RBI singles by Surratt and Gabrels and a sac fly by Springfield.

Two walks and an infield error also kept the inning alive to put the score at 7-1 at the end of three and that would be the final score.

With the way DeMarcus was pitching all game, however, the game was pretty much over after the Impact took the lead in the second.

The 2027 pitcher committed to Auburn faced a challenge in the top of the 6^th when a single and an error put runners on the corners with no outs. DeMarcus would get a fly out in foul ground, a strikeout and fly out to centerfield to end the threat and allow the Impact to close it out one inning later.

Here’s a post-game clip of the Impact Taylor players posing with their new piece of hardware, the championship trophy:

The winning pitcher went the distance and in her seven innings in the circle gave up just three hits with nine strikeouts and two walks.

Goodwin took the loss, giving up three hits in her 2.2 innings with five strikeouts and four walks.

Surrat on the offensive side led Impact by going 2-for-3 with an RBI and a run scored. For Arizona Rising, Ford went 1-for-3 with a run scored.

Errors played a big part in the game as each team had three.

Here’s the closing play of the game as leadoff hitter Payton Westra (Oklahoma) flied out to centerfield to give the Impact the title:

After the game, here’s the interview by Line Drive’s Brentt Eads with winning coach Kip Taylor:

Finally, the star of the game, pitcher Hannah DeMarcus, talks about winning the PGF National Championship…