An extra innings, eight runs to seven victory over a tough New Jersey travel team saw the Baseball New Zealand U13 Ripken All Stars become the first Kiwi baseball team to win a tournament in the United States.

The 12U Back to School Bash tournament is a lead-in competition to the Cal Ripken World Series in Branson, Missouri, and back-to-back wins over the New Jersey side, for the team playing as the Aotearoa All Stars saw the team win the final after coming from behind.

“A special milestone,” is how the win was described by Baseball New Zealand CEO Ryan Flynn, who added that “Winning is contagious and this country is bound to do great things in our great sport, sooner rather than later.”

Flynn’s sentiments are shared by the team’s head coach Andrew Marck. “I’m very proud of the team’s achievement in winning this competition against some very tough and well-drilled American opposition and this is the best platform we (as coaches) could have asked for, what an incredible result,” Marck said.

The team began the competition just 24 hours after the long flight from Auckland and showed grit through the tournament, not only beating the teams in their own grade, but also victories against much tougher 13U opposition in cross over games.

The team needed to beat the Edge team in a final qualifier on Friday (NZT) mornings game and did so in fine fashion with a walk-off home run by Wellington-based player Noah-Sea Nui to win 8-7. That score was repeated in the afternoon final as the All Stars came from behind to win the trophy.

The team also picked up the top prize in the Tournament Skills competition, while team captain Nikau Pouaka-Grego (Christchurch Redbirds) won the Home Run Derby.

The team began their Cal Ripken World Series tournament on Saturday (NZT) with a narrow 14-10 loss to the highly rated Dominican Republic, despite New Zealand slugger Mincharn Kim smashing a Grand Slam home run. The team play two more top rated programmes in group play, with Puerto Rico next up, followed by Japan.