FORT MYERS, Fla. – This trip east to the Southwest Florida Gulf Coast promised to be an educational one for the kids from eastern Texas and western Louisiana, and two days into Performance Baseball’s week-long experience at the 15u Perfect Game BCS Finals it was shaping up to be a successful one, too.

The Performance Baseball travel ball organization identifies the city of Longview, Texas, as home, and while that is a Texas city through-and-through it is only an hour’s drive west of Shreveport, La., while also sitting more than 3 hours north of Houston.

Any way the pie is sliced, this is great territory to find some of the top high school-level baseball talent in the country, and a program like Performance Baseball loves coming over to the Southeast to show what it can bring to the table.

A young man named Nico Moran started the Performance Baseball program three years ago, and this week Nico has his father, Frank Moran, coaching the Performance Baseball squad at the 15u Perfect Game BCS Finals, a PG national championship event. Frank Moran is being ably assisted by his right-hand man, David Upchurch.

It’s a team that lacks nationally ranked 2018 or 2019 prospects but it’s a program that is rapidly finding its place. According to Frank Moran, Performance Baseball has already helped 40 kids secure college scholarships, and like every other travel ball group its goal is to get its kids those coveted scholarships before they’re handed out to someone else.

“These kinds of experiences, if these kids play well, will catch some people’s eyes and get some coaches looking at them; it’s a great experience for all these kids,” Frank Moran said Saturday before the team played its second of five pool-play games in five days. “… We didn’t come here to fiddle-faddle around; we want them to play hard and hustle because that’s the way we teach them.

“These kids have started migrating towards us since the program started,” he continued. “(Nico Moran) has done well with getting the name out there … and the kids love it. So far they’ve had a great time (being part of the program).”

Performance Baseball is part of a 72-team field that includes national powerhouses like Team Elite 15’s Prime (Winder, Ga.), Scorpions 2019 Prime (Altamonte Springs, Fla.), Georgia Jackets National (Alpharetta, Ga.) and Florida Burn Platinum 2019 (Sarasota, Fla.) that have rosters overflowing with many of the top prospects in the class of 2019.

It’s all meaningless in the eyes of these Texas teenagers, a group that honestly believes it can come over here and win PG national championship rings. It certainly started well enough on Friday when Performance whipped Team GA 15u Elite from Atlanta, 13-2, and continued into Saturday when it smacked the Scorpions South 2019 Prime out of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., 6-2.

The Performance players combined for 16 hits in the win over Team GA 15u Elite, which included Deuce Ervin collecting three hits – one a double – while driving in a run with a run scored; Gus Witt went 2-for-4 with two RBI and a run; and CJ Williams was 2-for-2 with two RBI and two runs. In short, it was a great way to kick off the tournament.

“I was just feeling good (Friday),” the 2019 outfielder Ervin said. “We have been preparing for a while for this tournament and I like to get out of the state (of Texas) and seeing different baseball and stuff like that. It’s kind of a learning experience and it’s fun to be around all these other guys.”

“A win like that gets their confidence going,” Frank Moran added. “It’s easy to pitch when you’ve got a lead – you just have to throw strikes and get them to hit ground balls and make some outs.”

Performance Baseball came out Saturday ready to build on the foundation it set Friday and promptly disposed of the highly regarded Scorpions South 2019. Keshon Williams tripled and drove in a run, Gunnar Capps doubled and had an RBI and Thomas Cox singled and drove in one.

But that game might just be remembered as the Perfect Game debut of 6-foot-5, 175-pound 2019 left-hander Turner Toms from Benton, La., who used a fastball that sat 77-78 mph and topped-out at 80 mph to throw five innings without allowing an earned run on five hits; he struck-out 11 and walked one.

“We want all these kids to get the experience first of all, but they drive a long way and they want to win,” Moran said. “It’s not all about winning but we want them to get the full experience. We’re going to put our best team out there every start … and we want to compete and we’re going to compete, and even if were losing we’re going to compete; we’re not going to stop.”

The format at the 15u PG BCS Finals requires teams to play only one game per day for the first five days of pool-play and the latest games are scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Frank Moran likes that his players can adjust their internal clocks so they know they only have to be prepared to get down to business for two hours every morning or early afternoon and then they can enjoy the rest of these precious summer days.

“They get their minds set right – with a 15-year-old it’s hard to get their mind set right – so it’s a good format and I love it, I really do,” he said. “Besides the good competition, we hope they learn how to play the game a little bit more against different competition instead of just against teams from Texas.

“We play in some big tournaments in Texas, don’t get me wrong, but once they get out of high school and get into college, they’re going to be playing people from all over the United States and sometimes people from different countries.”

Just in its five pool-play games, Performance Baseball will play two teams from Florida, two teams from Georgia and one from Illinois. A PG national championship tournament like the 15u PG BCS Finals can both open eyes and open doors and show the teenagers involved there’s a big, unforgiving world out there, a world they should embrace.

“For them to get this experience and for them to know there’s not just baseball in Texas, that it’s everywhere and they’re good everywhere,” Moran said. “We tell them all time that they’re a dime a dozen. Everybody wants to go to the University of Florida and be the centerfielder but you’ve got to be the right person for that spot. But we’ll be happy when we leave here after this experience, I’ll promise you that. … We’re having a good time and we appreciate everything (Perfect Game does).”