July 6, 2026
AURORA, Colo. – There is an old adage that defense wins championships. This has never been more true than in the 18u National Power Pool Championship when Nadia Jeffries jumped over the center field fence to rob a home run and secure the championship.
Oklahoma Athletics National - Madden/Brown 26/27 beat TN Mojo Ramsey 7-5 in eight innings to win the 18u National Power Pool Championship at the Colorado 4th of July tournament. Early on, nobody could have expected it would take extra innings to come away with the championship, but championship games rarely go the way you draw it up
The two teams arrived by very different paths. TN Mojo Ramsey rolled through group play at 5-1-0, then survived one-run bracket games against Rogue FC Kaye and Explosion Premier 18u to reach the final. Oklahoma Athletics stumbled to 2-2-2 in group play, then flipped a switch, shutting out VA Glory Willemssen and Fury Platinum X Higdon by matching 3-0 scores before grinding out an 8-6 semifinal win over a fellow Oklahoma Athletics squad, Madden/Davis.
The pitching matchup lived up to the hype. Oklahoma commit Keegan Baker, the No. 18 overall recruit in the country, took the circle for OK Athletics. Alabama commit Lyla Morici, ranked No. 9, started for Mojo. Baker won the first three innings of that duel outright.
OK Athletics' bats broke it open in the second. An error opened the door, Londyn Bond and Kaitlyn Bryant strung together back-to-back singles, but two back-to-back fielders choices saw runners out at home. Aubrie Pogue opened up the scoring with a two-run single with the bases loaded, Jules Barger drew a walk to load them right back up, and Marcela Attar singled home another to make it 3-0.
Bond put an exclamation point on the third inning, turning on a pitch and sending it out to center for a two-run home run to make it 5-0 and chase Morici out of the game. Addison DeRoche came on in relief to settle things down for Mojo.
It seemed like a 5-0 lead would have been more than enough to be safe for Oklahoma Athletics, but it was not.
Audrey Cathey got Mojo started with a sacrifice fly in the third. She was not finished. Kayla Fischer's RBI double in the fifth made it 5-2. Jordan Nailling doubled home another run in the sixth, this one off OK Athletics reliever Camden Mack to make it 5-3, and a game that looked decided in the third inning was very much alive in the sixth.
Then came the seventh. Cathey delivered again, a two-run single up the middle that tied the game at 5-5 and sent the tying run all the way to second on the throw home. An error put runners at the corners. OK Athletics chose to load the bases on purpose, intentionally walking Ava Briski with one out. Jillian Wimmer struck out. Morgan Bragg grounded out to the pitcher. Regulation ended in a tie, and a championship that had felt decided for four innings suddenly needed extra innings to be settled.
Playing international tiebreaker rules, with a runner starting on second in each half-inning, OK Athletics struck first in the eighth. After one out, Brooklyn Wells drove a two-run home run to left field, and OK Athletics led 7-5 heading to the bottom half.
Mojo was one out away from losing and needed a big play to force a ninth inning. Then London Hoffmaster got a hold of one and sent it deep to center, a ball that looked gone the moment it left the bat.
Nadia Jeffries had other ideas. She ran it down, timed her jump, and came down on the other side of the fence still holding the ball to rob the home run and win the championship for Oklahoma Athletics. After TN Mojo Ramsey had worked so hard to erase a five-run deficit and claw back into the game, Jeffries erased all of that with just one leap.
