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Tournaments  | Story  | 7/2/2023

Team Francisco Looks to Repeat at Freedom Classic

Riley Sheppard     
Team Francisco has made an annual tradition of traveling to Fort Myers, Florida, to play in the BCS National Championship and Freedom Classic. 

Making the trip from Farmingdale, New York, in each of the last three summers, the club now has the opportunity to go back-to-back after punching its ticket to Monday’s championship. 



“It's very important for us to repeat,” head coach Joe Fusco said. “This year we went back to the round of 16 again at BCS. Obviously looking to repeat as champions is always a good thing, Florida’s got a really good quality of baseball so we always enjoy coming down here and being able to compete.”

Posting a 4-0 record on the weekend, with two of those victories coming on Sunday - including a 3-1 semifinal victory over SWFL 2024 Nation. 

Outfielder Jordan Ynoa got Team Francisco on the board first, with a groundout to drive in Matthew Cruz in the bottom of the second. 

But it was a dominant pitching performance from right-hander Tyler Longoria that was the key to his team’s victory. A St. John’s commit, Longoria tossed a complete seven innings, striking out 10 and allowing five hits over 95 pitches. 

“He’s got an explosive fastball and devastating slider,” Fusco said. “When he's throwing both for strikes and then mixing in the change up when he needs it, he's pretty tough to hit.”

Tacking on two more over the fourth and fifth with Christian Alicea and Sam Leonard making their way around the bases, Longoria would need just 10 pitches to retire the side in the final frame. 

Now with an opportunity to defend its Freedom Classic title, Team Francisco knows it’ll come down to what they preach the most: family.  

“We always have their back and they have our back,” Fusco said. “That certain level of closeness just breeds confidence. It's something that no matter what the score of the game is - we were down in BCS late in the round of 16 game pretty pretty big and we were still like ‘we could win this game.’ There was never any doubt, so that closeness definitely brings us to a different level.”
 
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