CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – The 15th annual Perfect Game WWBA Kernels Foundation Championship finally got underway Friday night, a week later than originally planned. It is safe to say that of the 36 teams competing this weekend at ball fields sprinkled across three Eastern Iowa counties, none was chomping at the bit more to get this thing started than the Cedar Rapids-based PG Iowa Select Black.
No Iowa-based team has ever won the Kernels Foundation Championship title and been in position to accept the paid invitation to the PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla., that goes with it. An underclass Iowa Select Navy team came close last year when it finished as runner-up, the highest finish for an Iowa-based team since a squad named Perfect Game East finished second at the inaugural event in 2002.
There are 11 prospects on this weekend’s Select Black roster that were on last year’s Kernels Foundation Championship runner-up Iowa Select Navy team, including three 2017s that were named to the all-tournament team: Anthony Alepra from Cedar Rapids (top-500 ranked, Northwestern commit), Jack Dreyer from Johnston, Iowa (No. 327, Iowa) and Nick Hagen from West Burlington, Iowa.
“I think this is what everyone’s been building towards as far as the fall goes, to get back and compete and hopefully put ourselves in a good position to maybe do a little better than we did last year,” PG Iowa Select Baseball director and PG Iowa Select Black manager Steve James said before Select Black opened the tournament Friday against Top-Tier Americans 18u (McCook, Ill.) at Perfect Game Field-Veterans Memorial Stadium.
“The good thing is we have some continuity from last year to this year with me coaching them last year, and everyone kind of knows what to expect out of each other.”
Last year’s Iowa Select Navy team not only scooted through pool-play with a 3-0-0 mark but also eliminated the highly regarded Elite Baseball Training 2017s, 3-2, in the quarterfinals and Team DeMarini Illinois, 4-3, in the semifinals; they fell to the Rawlings Hitters Navy, 5-2, in the championship game.
“Competing as well as we did last year as juniors really gave them some confidence, and obviously there were quite a few battles to get to the final,” James said. “I would say that everyone that was around last year, that really helped them to kind of figure out how this travel ball stuff works and figure out the things you have to do to win and be successful.”
The one aspect of this Select Black team that James feels might set it apart is its quality depth among the position players, with four or five already committed to NCAA Division I schools. When primary pitchers are added to the mix, there are a total of eight players committed to four D-I schools – Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern and Butler – with the likelihood of at least one or two more joining those ranks.
Perfect Game’s class of 2017 national rankings also support the depth of this group. The list is led by the left-hander/outfielder Dreyer at No. 327, followed closely by shortstop/right-hander John Swanda from Des Moines, a Nebraska recruit ranked No. 391.
“We’re here to do what we did last year – and even better,” the Northwestern commit Alepra said Friday. “We have a lot of the same guys along with some new guys and I think we’re ready to do that.”
Alepra is among 10 2017s on the roster ranked in the top-500 nationally, including 6-foot-5, 200-pound outfielder/first baseman Connor McCaffery from Iowa City.
McCaffery is one of four Select Black players that has committed to the University of Iowa, but he is a special case. Connor is the son of Iowa men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery, and as a four-star basketball recruit he has committed to the Hawkeyes to specifically play basketball. On Friday, however, his mind was on baseball and helping this team return to Monday’s championship game to be played at PG Field-Veterans Memorial Stadium.
“Last year we were a bunch of young guys and we were hungry coming into this tournament; we wanted to win,” he said. “Coming back to it this year, there are a lot of really good teams here again and I think we’re definitely ready to try to get this (done).”
There is a very real possibility that Connor McCaffery will play both basketball and baseball at Iowa, and he told PG Friday, “That’s the plan.” He has actually made an unofficial baseball visit to Iowa, and his dad, the Hawkeyes’ basketball coach who was at PG Field Friday, hasn’t closed the door on the possibility: “The seasons overlap,” Fran McCaffery told The Des Moines Register in June. “You could still do it. And I would let him.”
Some of the other top-500s on the Select Black roster include Trenton Wallace (Rock Island, Ill., Iowa); Jordan Wendel (Schaller, Iowa, Butler); Joel Thompson (Council Bluffs, Iowa, Iowa) and Ben Probst (Urbandale, Nebraska).
James like this collection of top-500s. He would, of course, welcome the services of top-100s and top-200s but also believes this is a group that is, obviously, talented enough to take their game to the proverbial next level and also understands its limitations; the players feel the need to both feed and play off one another if it is to reach its goals. Twelve roster spots filled with players ranked in the top-500 nationally is “depth” personified.
“This is just a balanced team and a group of kids that really like hanging out with each other, and they’re all competitive,” James said. “I’m pretty laid-back and low-key, but when it’s time to play the game you have to get after it … and they’re going to compete every chance they get. They’re really competitive and they really enjoy the challenge of playing other really good teams.”
“This is definitely a different dynamic than high school baseball,” said Alepra, who is on the baseball team at Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School, one of Iowa’s premier Class 4A (big-school) programs. “We’re back in school but this is baseball, and it’s really easy to stay focused at a tournament like this.”
Heavy rain and flooding in the Cedar Rapids area forced the postponement of this year’s PG WWBA Kernels Foundation Championship from last weekend to this weekend, and the field of participating teams dipped to 36.
But all of the big boys decided to return – including 2015 champion Hitters Baseball Navy, 2015 third-place finishers Team DeMarini Illinois and Twin Cities Baseball Academy, and three-time event champion and two-time runner-up Reds Midwest Scout Team – so Iowa Select Black will have ample opportunity to compete against the best.
And there is another squad the Black cannot afford to turn their back on. This year’s Iowa Select Navy underclass team has an extremely enviable pedigree with seven prospects already committed to D-I schools. There are also five players ranked in the class of 2018’s top-500, including No. 94 Ian Bedell (Missouri) and No. 100 Clayton Nettleton (Iowa), both from Davenport, Iowa, and No. 146 Luke Patzner from Urbandale (Iowa).
“That Navy team – and I have not seen this in the 12 years that I have been with Perfect Game – with the amount of depth it has in pitching … you just don’t see that in Iowa very often,” James said.
There are actually five PG Iowa Select teams competing at this event this weekend – Black, Navy, Green, Red and Royal – and nothing would please James more than to see at least two of those teams playing on Monday morning. But he especially likes the positive chemistry that flows through this Black team, and that’s not something lost on the players.
“We all have a really good relationship with each other,” McCaffery said. “Most of us were teammates last year and the new guys that have joined the team are really cool guys. I’m looking forward to being teammates with some of these guys later in my career (at Iowa). …
“Just as a group, we really mesh well together,” he said. “That’s what makes us as good as we are, too, because we trust each other and we trust that we’ll hit, field and do everything that it takes.”
And there is another aspect of the PG WWBA Kernels Foundation Championship and its place on the PG tournament schedule. The event provides many of the top teams from around the Midwest an excellent opportunity to fine-tune their games just three weeks before the blockbuster PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla.
“We’re preparing for Jupiter, too, because that’s our big one here at the end of the year,” McCaffery said. “But this is the one we always look forward to, for this team. It’s always the Kernels and then Jupiter – those are the main ones that get us excited.”