FPBL defending 9U league champions Mo Steel Baseball brings home the USSSA Winter State Championship hardware going 5-0. To be crowned champions Mo Steel Baseball had to get past the #1, #2, and #3 ranked teams in the state of Florida based on the USSSA Point System. Great weekend of baseball in Tampa. Mo Steel defeated the #2 ranked team in the state the Orlando Tigers 8-3, in the semi finals they defeated the #3 ranked team in the state the Tampa Titians 8-6. The championship had us facing our number 1 nemesis and the number 1 ranked team in the state of Florida Team Miami. Our kids came ready to play and it showed as we scored 7 runs in the 1^st inning. Team Miami would not go away quietly and in the bottom of the fifth with Mo Steel up 8-3 Team Miami scored 4 runs to make it a one run game heading into the 6^th inning. After coming up empty in top half of the 6^th Team Miami came up in the bottom half of the 6^th and had a runner on third with two outs when the last batter grounded to short to end the inning and the game. Final Score 8-7. This was a complete team effort. Our offense was lead by Armando Sierra (9 for 16) and Jonathan Ruiz (7 for 14). Defensively Carlos Castillo, Jonathan Vega, Santiago Garavito, had a solid defensive tournament. On the mound we were lead by Edgar Quintana, Yordani Cardona, Brian Pazzo and Carlos (Kike) Fernandez. To have a complete team you need unselfish players and that was Anthony Gutierrez and OJ Borroto who made their contributions when called on by coming up with some timely hitting. This is a great start to our 2010 season as now we set out sites on repeating as the FPBL league champions.