By Brentt Eads

The PGF 18U Premier Nationals only had a handful of bracket games on Monday but what an eye-opening start it was as one powerhouse program lost in first round play and another nationally known team came close to also falling into the loser's bracket.

Watch the 18U Premier Bracket Play LIVE July 26-29 on FoSoftball!


The OC Batbusters-Stith team is the two-time defending champ at the 18U Premier level, but Mike Stith's squad will have a long road to go to make it three in a row.

In the premier first round bracket game, the Batbusters fell to the So Cal Choppers-Fausett team 4-0 as Arizona signee and PGF All-American Jessica Harper was the difference in the game, slugging a pair of home runs and knocking in three for Dean Fausett's squad.




Harper says she was "calm… and wanted to help my team as much as I could."

Without pitcher Taylor Dockins, who is recovering from cancer surgery, Harper says the team is inspired to up its play and rallied behind today's starting pitcher Brooke Yanez, a 2017 grad going to UC Davis.

"We wanted to help Brooke as much as we could and make her feel supported by our offense," she said after the win.

Yanez tossed a four-hitter with five strikeouts.

FIRECRACKERS DODGE THE HOTSHOTS

For a while, it looked like the Batbusters would be facing another well-known team in tomorrow's loser bracket match-up as the Firecrackers-Rico team fell behind 5-3 early to the Diamond Sports Hotshots from Texas before rallying for five runs in the sixth inning to escape with a 8-5 victory.

Baylor-bound infielder Alyssa Dalton crushed a three-run homer for the Hotshots to put the Texas team ahead in the second inning.

Texan Brooke Vestal, the 2018 grad committed to Oklahoma, came in for the Firecrackers at that point and effectively shut the door, retiring 16 batters in a row before giving up two hits in the bottom of the 7th inning.

The tying run came to the plate as Vestal gave up two hits, but with runners on the corners she was able to induce a groundout to first to close out the win.

That means that the Batbusters and Hotshots will face each other tomorrow and one of the quality teams will be going home much earlier than hoped for.