Baseball: Champs!! -- Bronco Blues end up golden boys

There are underdogs and dark horses.

Then there is the Ahwatukee Foothills PONY League Broncos Blue baseball team.

Or, the "Who are those guys?" as they came be called by the conclusion of the United States Specialty Teams Association (USSSA) tournament last weekend at the Field of Dreams baseball complex in Gilbert.

Thrown together in three weeks following the regular 12-and-under Ahwatukee Foothills PONY league season, the Bronco Blues followed the well-worn cliché of playing them one at a time and stormed through the tournament to win the division championship. 

"It was the classic story of if you can put things together and play well you can beat anyone, anytime any day," said Bronco Blue All Star manager Greg Tornga.

The Bronco Blue team was one of four Ahwatukee Foothills PONY league teams that decided to pass on the regular PONY state tournament that can run through July and compressed the post-season into one June weekend.

"We were a team that had been playing together for just three weeks, playing in a 12-year-old tournament with eight players who were 11 years old and just got the job done," Tornga added.

The Bronco Red team lost its opener, 3-0 to the Arizona Clash and the second game to the Scottsdale Venom. They beat the Arizona Desert Hawks, 8-2, but were eliminated by the Clash in a rematch, 9-2. 

In the 9 and 10-year-old Mustang division the Ahwatukee Blue All Stars got into the Sunday round and finished with a 2-2 record while the Mustang Red All Stars closed out with a 1-2 tournament record.

In pool play the Blue All Stars lost to Chandler, 10-5, and the Rio Rico Dragons 1, 9-4, before beating the Yuma Desert Dawgs, 6-3, and the Players U10, 7-1.

The Red All Stars beat the Players U10, 10-8, in pool play before losing to Rio Rico 14-4. They lost to LHBA U10, 12-2, in the single elimination round. The Bronco Blues, meanwhile, ran the table in the tournament with a 5-0 record. They beat the Desert Cats, 12-4, in the opener and the Arizona Wildfire, 9-1 in the second game in Saturday's opening day in pool play. 

In Sunday's single-elimination rounds they beat Glendale's Regulators, 11-2, the Diablos from Nogales, 11-3 before taking the title with a 4-1 victory over Peoria's Express.

"On Saturday we were just clicking," Tornga said. "We played error-free baseball, we got the hits, lots of them when we needed them, and our pitching was good."

That would have been good enough.

"We were already content and proud of what we did on Saturday," Tornga added. "Then we just continued on our roll on Sunday."

Some of those teams, Tornga said, were club teams that had been together for months and in some cases years.

"We didn't squeak out those wins, we were thumping them," Tornga said. "We kept hearing, ‘Who are these guys.' Everyone contributed in different situations in different games. We played good, solid baseball and that made it a special day." 

The victory qualified the Blues to play in the regional and possibly make it to the nationals in Denver.

But before the tournament started parents and coaches had agreed to end the season and disband the club after the final tournament game.

"When you're riding high the kids want to keep playing, but obviously that wasn't feasible," Tornga said. "It was euphoric for the parents and the kids, but Denver is a week-long tournament and that wasn't within our schedule."