2026 Rocky Mountain Classic tournament report!

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2026 Rocky Mountain Classic

Aurora, Colorado

August 28-30

Marcus Yoder scores in the semifinals ahead of the Wichita Bonding throw home.

Rocky Mountain Team List

Video and Article Links

Rocky Mountain Results & Bracket Link

2026 Rocky Mountain Picture Album (adding action photos daily)

YouTube Channel (Highlights and Condensed Games)

BallClubz Boxscores link

BallClubz Team Stat Reports link

Archived Livestream Games Link

USSSA Stats Link

T’s 13 vs Top Shelf condensed game link

Top Shelf vs I-57 Roofing condensed game link

Bay Area Legends vs GTL condensed game link

WestPoint vs Greinert condensed game link

Friday Night Recap

T’s 13 and Top Shelf begin the Rocky Mountain Classic.

The Rocky Mountain Classic was played Friday thru Sunday August 28-30th, 2026 at the Aurora Sports Complex in Aurora, Colorado just outside of Denver. There were 19 teams from 10 different states and 11 of the teams were from the Conference USSSA. This was the final regular season Conference tournament. They used the Dudley Classic-M ball on the 310 to 320 foot fields in the high altitude, and the temperatures ranged from the low 90’s during the day to a very cool 72 later at night and the wind came and went at times. There were 13 ‘B’ teams in this tournament.

“Play In” Games:

The tournament began at 4 PM mountain time on Friday. Very few of the Conference teams used the Ballclubz live scoring app and I (DW) was concentrating on the beloved condensed games so I don’t have a lot of details on the bulk of the games. T’s 13 (NE-B) scored 7 runs on 2 home runs in the top of the 1st and then 8 on 1 in the top of the 2nd to take an early lead on Top Shelf/BC Apparel/Icon (OK-B). In the bottom of the 4th Top Shelf scored 6 on 3 making T’s 13 pay for not covering 2nd on a ground ball to shortstop. In the top of the 6th T’s 13’s Lance Hansen hit a 2 out 3 run homer to put them up 26-20. Then T’s 13 veteran pitcher Losson White who came out of retirement to pitch this one stumbled over 1st base and injured his arm and Top Shelf tied the game 26-26 going to the top of the 7th inning. T’s managed 3 runs in the top of the 7th but Top Shelf tied the game at 29-29 on shortstop Zach Lewis’s 3rd homer of the game, a 3 runner, forcing extra innings where Top Shelf won on a walk off single by Colton Scott. In other “play in” action My AZ Lawyers/Impact/Mason Pro (AZ-B) who played so well at the Phoenix Major back in early June, beat LEGACY/4HIM/SMASHITSPORTS (CO-B) 26-6.

Top Shelf wins in extra innings over T’s 13 on a walk off single by Colton Scott.

“Round of 16”:

In the “round of 16” Combat MFG (OK-B) scored 15 runs in the top of the 1st inning against RAISED DIFFERENT/ FRSTeam (CO-C) and cruised to a 5 inning 27-6 run rule win. They used 5 of their 8 home runs and were led by Gary Burley who was 4-4 with 4 runs scored and Shawn Rogers and Zach Hess each hit 2 home runs. WichitaBonding/GrandDesign/WAI (OK-B) trailed GTL/Legacy/Dirty (WA-B) 12-11 going into the bottom of the 7th and won on a walk off backside 2 run homer by Cody Biermaier with 1 out. I-57/Beloli SIS/All Hustle/JBL/Axe (IL-AA) the #1 seed rolled through Top Shelf 32-6 when Steve Edwards had a grand slam and a 3 run homer in the 1st inning and they hit 11 of their 14 home runs in the run rule shortened game. VIP/WICKED SPORTS (CA-B) run ruled R1/WWS/JJ sports (CO-B) 23-8 in 6 innings scoring 9 in the bottom of the 1st and shutting out R1 in the last 4 innings in a battle of Conference ‘B’ teams. GREINERT – KOVAL – BAF (MD-A) trailing the local Stars / Squared Away (CO-B) 11-6 going into the top of the 5th, scored 8 in the 5th, 9 in the 6th, and 6 in the 7th to win 29-20. WestPoint (IN-AA) the only other ‘AA’ team in the tournament made quick work of Smoke/TopNotch/CompleteAutoGlass 29-3 in 3.5 innings, scoring 8 in the bottom of the 1st, 10 in the bottom of the 2nd, and 11 in the bottom of the 3rd on 11 HR total for the game. Leadoff hitter Canaan Baum, 4 hitter Brock Frentzel, and 7 hitter Joey Kampfer were all 4-4 on base in the win. Bay Area Legends (CA-A) after trailing 11-0 to My AZ Lawyers, came on strong scoring 25 runs in the next 4 innings to win 25-20. And Apex/CBB Athletics (CO-B) scored 12 in the bottom of the 1st to beat GemGlove/Anarchy/T21/D2/BMasters (UT-B) 18-14 in a strange game were the teams combined for no runs in the 2nd-3rd-4th-5th innings combined?

Wichita Bonding’s Cody Biermaier hits a walk off homer to beat GTL.

Quarterfinals:

Greinert’s Zach Carter gets the assist from LF on WestPoint with Beasley holding on to the tag at the plate!

The quarterfinals were also played on Friday at 7:30 PM mountain time as we learned that the park had a 10:30 PM drop dead curfew. Wichita Bonding trailing Combat MFG 16-12 going into the bottom of the 6th, scored 15 runs to beat Combat MFG 27-16. I-57 Roofing trailing VIP/Wicked Sports, who finally had all of their players, 29-25 going into the bottom of the 7th, won on a walk off homer by David Yoder 31-29 after a dropped ball in the outfield helped set up the winner. Josh Kirsten and Mitch Carriger were both 5-5 in the win. Ryan Mcclanahan pitching for WestPoint this game hit a grand slam in the top of the 3rd inning in their game against Greinert to spark a 17 run inning. But they used up way too many of their 14 home runs on solo shots, hitting 8 solo’s early in the game. Their 24-11 lead vanished in the bottom of the 3rd when Greinert scored 14 runs to take a 25-24 lead, but more importantly they held a 13-10 home run advantage. In the top of the 4th WestPoint used their last homer to tie the game at 25-25 and in the bottom of the 4th Wade Beasley hit a no doubter 3 run shot for a 28-25 Greinert lead. Greinert then got a 1-2-3 inning with the homers gone in the top of the 5th and used their last home runs in the bottom of the 6th to pull the upset 31-26. The teams used all 28 home runs in the game. And in the last quarterfinal game Apex upset Bay Area 29-22 to advance to Saturday’s final 4.

I-57’s David Yoder hits a walk off homer to beat VIP in the quarterfinals Friday night.

Saturday Recap

WestPoint takes on MyAZLawyers in the 4th place game.

Semifinals:

The semifinals were played on Saturday afternoon in warm and windy weather. I-57 Roofing jumped out to a 20-6 lead on Wichita Bonding after 4 innings. And Wichita needing an answer in the top of the 5th left the bases loaded on a strike out looking. In the bottom of the 5th needing 1 run to win, I-57 got a walk off solo homer from Orlando Olivera to win 21-6. I-57 hit just 5 home runs in the wind in the win. In the other semifinal Greinert led 19-6 against Apex after scoring 11 runs in the bottom of the 1st inning. And they finally finished Apex by the run rule scoring 7 on 2 in the bottom of the 6th to win 28-13.

The winners final game played at 5:30 PM on field #4 was an odd game between the wind which blew in hard from right field and the threatening rain which led to a lightning delay. I-57 Roofing hit the first home run of the game (14 limit) in the top of the 2nd inning and it was hit by “Laser” Dave Johnson. I-57 led 7-6 after 2 complete innings. I-57’s defense was on full display early as Nic Perkins made an ESPN quality diving stop in the bottom of the 1st inning and Josh Kirsten in center field made a full diving stop to end the bottom of the 2nd. In the top of the 3rd Greinert had some defense of their own as middle infielder Anthony Ottrando turned a double play. In the bottom of the 3rd Kirsten in center field struck again when he robbed a Greinert homer and then David Yoder in left field robbed a homer. I-57 meanwhile kept hitting deep flyouts and after the 4th inning the game went into a lightning delay. When they came back 45 minutes later the wind was blowing directly out to right field. Greinert went up 17-9 on Beasley and Carter home runs while I-57 scored 3 runs on 3 solos. The two teams traded good infield defense the rest of the way as I-57’s Adam Ussery took a DP himself, shortstop Marcus Yoder made a nice sliding play, and Greinert 2B Cabot Van Til made nice sliding and leaping plays for outs. But at the end Greinert held on to an unlikely upset win 20-17 without having to bat in the bottom of the 7th.

GTL hits against Bay Area Legends in the loser’s bracket Saturday morning.

The loser’s bracket played out all day long on Saturday. In the top half GTL was eliminated by Bay Area Legends 26-22 who was then eliminated by WestPoint 44-14. In the bottom half Stars won 2 in a row but was eliminated by MY AZ Lawyers who beat GemGlove 22-17, Combat MFG 23-20, Stars 20-17, and Apex 30-27 before losing to Westpoint 57-26 to finish 4th.

In the loser’s final the temperatures had cooled off to an almost uncomfortable chill and it was the battle between the two ‘AA’ teams WestPoint and I-57 Roofing. The core of the Classic-M hardened up so much that it appeared that it was hard to make an out. I-57 scored 21 runs on just 5 home runs in the top of the 1st inning. WestPoint answered with 14 on 4 and it was 31-22 I-57 and 6-7 on home runs after 3 innings. I-57 put up a zero in the top of the 3rd but never let off the gas and went up 46-28 going into the bottom of the 5th. WestPoint needing 4 runs to keep the game going with 4 HR to hit, made 3 outs in a row to end the game. Josh Kirsten was 6-6 and I-57’s new pickup Cody Roton was 5-5 in the win as I-57 hit 13 HR.

Sunday Recap

The tournament finished on Sunday morning. The championship started at 9 AM mountain time in perfect weather. The ball was flying and the game had a little bit of everything and was a close game throughout. There were a lot of 2 and 3 run home runs. Greinert’s team did hit one solo which prompted a quote of the day “we don’t give hugs for solos”. There were strikeout looking’s, Kirsten fell running out of the box and injured his ankle, and the wind couldn’t make up its mind which direction to blow. But I-57 scored 12 on 3 in the top of the 5th then made two straight outs to end the inning up 32-28 and tied with Greinert on home runs at 12 (14 limit). In the bottom of the 5th Greinert used their last 2 home runs to take a 34-32 lead. In the top of the 6th Marcus Yoder hit a 2 run double over the bag at 3rd base to tie the game and Laser Dave and Jordan Spaulding hit 2 run homers to go up 38-34. In the bottom of the 6th out of home runs Greinert hit 3 straight infield ground ball outs and in I-57 center fielder David Yoder made a spectacular running and diving catch in left center field to force the “if” game. David Johnson was 6-6 with 7 RBI and Jordan Spaulding 6-6 with 5 RBI in the win.

In the final game the sun came out and the humidity rose and suddenly teams could not score. In the top of the 1st inning I-57 pitcher Mitch Carriger got a strike out looking to start the game. In the bottom of the 2nd Greinert center fielder Jarod Kashner made a spectacular home run robbing catch. And it was just 5-3 I-57 after 3 innings. In the top of the 5th lefty Will Marable tried for an inside the park home run but was thrown out at the plate. And in the bottom of the 5th I-57’s Jordan Spaulding hit a grand slam to put them up 9-8, David Yoder a 2 run homer 11-8, Blake Haag a 2 run homer 13-8, Cody Roton 2 run homer 15-8, and Laser Dave a 2 run homer 17-8. After hardly any scoring I-57 had scored 13 on 6 in the 5th! Greinert would pull to within 6 runs on Ottrando and Zachmann homers but I-57’s Orlando Olivera and Mitch Carriger led an 11 on 4 charge and finished Greinert 21-16 to win the game and the tournament! It was I-57’s 2nd tournament win of the season (Chicago) and wraps up the 2026 Conference USSSA regular season. The Conference Championship will be played in Kansas City September 18-20.

I-57 Roofing outfielder David Yoder seals the “if” game with a spectacular diving catch!

Long Bomber of the Week!

Greinert’s Wade Beasley is the Long Bomber of the Week. I don’t know if he hit the longest but he hit some no doubters.

Rocky Mountain Results and Awards

MVP – I-57 Pitcher Mitch Carriger

Defensive MVP – I-57 Middle Infielder Adam Ussery

Offensive MVP – Greinert lead off hitter Jesse Francis

Team by Team Notes

1st Place – I-57/Beloli SIS/All Hustle/JBL/Axe

IL-AA Record 6-1

I-57 struggled all 3 days at times but still showed some heart. They got Perkins back but Roxby was at the Military tournament. Seem healthy for the stretch run.