VERO BEACH, Fla. -- While Houston and Harrisburg were busy Friday securing championship game appearances in the 2022 RBI World Series, the fact remained that plenty of talent existed in the week-long tournament at the Jackie Robinson Training Complex.

Harrisburg leadoff hitter Ali Wagner helped her club beat Puerto Rico Aguadilla, 4-3, in seven innings in the final elimination game. Harrisburg (6-2) won on a walk-off passed ball that sent Rachel Seneca home with the game-winning run.

Hitting .346 in the tournament, Wagner has heated up by going 8-for-15 (.600) with two triples, a double, four runs and four RBIs in her past four games.

Houston (6-0) beat Puerto Rico, 5-3, on Friday and will make a bid for its fourth consecutive RBI World Series crown Saturday morning against Harrisburg, with first pitch scheduled for 9:30 ET. The game will stream live on MLB.com and will be called by Jill Gearing and Mo’ne Davis, with Sande Charles serving as sideline reporter.

Wagner, who played in 29 games as a freshman at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Penn., was a player Harrisburg coach Taylor Weisman sought out after their respective high schools faced each other.

The skipper glowed when speaking of the all-around character of her standout center fielder.

“She’s one of my college kids, and she’s just a great athlete and great person all around,” said Weisman. “She’s from our area, and I said, ‘I want her.’ She’s a positive kid and out here to have fun.”

Wagner and her teammates traveled with the team from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, on Thursday night as MLB sent the players south to Jupiter, Fla., where the Hammerheads hosted the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels in Single-A Florida State League action.

The bond between the teams grew from that night of Minor League baseball at the Marlins’ and Cardinals’ Spring Training complex.

After Harrisburg wrapped up its 8-0 win over Cleveland early Friday morning, the Pennsylvania team sprinted over to the Puerto Rico grandstands and raucously cheered on the club late in the contest.

But the island team fell to tourney favorite Houston, forcing an afternoon game between Harrisburg and Puerto Rico -- new friends but also new rivals bidding to reach the title game.

“This is my last year to compete, and my teammates have been amazing,” said Wagner, who is in her second RBI World Series. “We really connected [with Puerto Rico] on the bus.”

Cleveland center fielder Kristen Zak and Hoboken staff ace Gabby Diaz could barely speak as both were hoarse from cheering so loudly in their earlier games.

Like Wagner, Zak batted leadoff, played in center and served as the Guardians’ spark plug as they made a push but lost to Harrisburg in the elimination match.

While waiting for umpires to arrive before facing the Marlins on the Excellence Field in their second games Thursday, Zak and her Guardian teammates were also in a social mood.

The opposing squads stood side-by-side in three lines in front of the Cleveland dugout, turned up the music and scooted along the clay in unison to the rhythm before first pitch.

The game pitted a rematch of sorts of the 1997 World Series between the then-Cleveland Indians and Florida Marlins, a meeting the South Florida side won in seven games on Edgar Renteria’s 11th-inning walk-off single.

“Honestly, my voice is gone from bringing the energy,” said Zak. “I was still out there banging on stuff because I can’t yell. And we’re dancing with the Marlins right now.”

Added Kathie Zak, Kristen’s mother, while taking a break from Friday’s action: “This whole [tournament] is amazing. I can’t thank MLB enough for this.”

Cleveland went on to beat the Marlins, 6-5, but lost to Harrisburg the next morning.

A rough voice from the spirited celebration of pumping up her teammates wasn’t Diaz’s only health issue of the week.

She was overcome by the intense Florida heat in an earlier outing and needed treatment in the 42 building at the complex, but she returned to pitch a complete game in her club’s 6-0 loss to Harrisburg on Thursday afternoon.

“The experience has been great, to be honest,” Diaz said. “We’ve actually become great friends with the Houston team. We go back to our villas and enjoy our time here.”

Puerto Rico catcher Claudia Ortiz had a strong tournament and will carry that to the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, where she will slide into the catching mix as a freshman.

“Their catcher graduated. It’s a lot of pressure but good pressure. It will challenge me to be a better person and player,” Ortiz said.

Andralyn Brown of the Reds will take her third-base skills to Kentucky State. She said she found something within her at the tourney that she didn’t know existed.

“I learned about leadership,” Brown said. “There’s not a lot of experience [on our team], so I’ve had to come up as a leader and find my voice. We became close as a team and family, and that’s what this has meant to me.”