Bret Denio’s Explosion 18U team made it all the way to Saturday play at the PGF Nationals earlier this month, finishing 7^th against the top teams in the country after coming in 5th place at the Boulder Independence Day.

This next year will see a lot of new faces on the So Cal-based baby-blue and black colored team as there will be 11 new players in addition to four talented returning players, two of whom were All-Americans and also 2015 Hot 100 prospects in pitcher Brittany Finney and catcher Paige Halstead.  Another pitcher, Ashley Ross, also was a 2015 Hot 100 prospect.

“We’re adding speed to our lineup this year,” says Coach Denio, “something we were missing this past year.  “We have three slappers now when we didn’t have any last year and I like my lineup which combines power and speed.”

The new players come from a mix of quality teams including the Explosion 16U team coach by Greg Borzilleri, the So Cal A’s McNee/Myers 16U PGF champs, the OC Batbusters-Smith program and the So Cal Choppers-Ziese.

You can see where the players are coming from below…

***

Returning Players
— P/UT Brittany Finney (2015, Oklahoma)
— C/IF Paige Halstead (2015, UCLA)
— P Ashley Ross (2015, Illinois)
— 3B Brittany Werre (2015, Washington)

New Players
— 3B/1B Gabby Alvarez (2016, Ole Miss) ¹
— SS Haley Finn (2016, NC State) ¹
— 2B Taryn Atlee – Rutgers ²
— OF Hannah Howell (2016, ASU) ²
— C Hailey Jensen (2016, North Carolina) ²
— SS Emily Ramelot (2016, ASU) ²
— P/1B Alyssa Loza (2016, ASU) ³
— OF Allison Tatnall (2016, ASU) ³
— OF/2B Kora Wade (2015, Boise State) ⁴
— OF/2B Chloe Melanson (2015, Miami-Ohio) ⁴
— UT Kolby Romaine (2015, Missouri) ⁵

1 = was with Explosion-Borzilleri
2 = was with OC Batbusters-Smith
3 = was with So Cal Choppers-Ziese
4 = was with So Cal A’s-McNee/Myers
5 = was with So Cal A’s-Richardson
6 = was with OC Batbusters 16U