FORT MYERS, Fla. – Call it The Great 8.
There is always a little bit of electricity in the air – and this is not a discussion about the lightning that can be so prevalent in Southwest Florida during the summer months although not so much in the fall – on “Playoff Day” at the Perfect Game WWBA Underclass World Championship.
When the day arrives, a PG national championship tournament that kicked off on Thursday with 206 teams from across the country and Canada, has been whittled down to a field of 64, any one of which are capable of taking home those championship rings.
At days end, when the 56 playoff games on the schedule are in the books, only eight of those 64 teams are still standing upright and taking in oxygen. And at that point, all eight are more than willing and able to play their respective hearts out in Monday morning’s quarterfinal and semifinal rounds; two will then be paired in Monday afternoon’s championship game.
This is what the 64 teams that earned a berth into bracket-play were faced with when the players and coaches opened their eyes Sunday morning. They would have to play – and win – a seven inning round-of-64 game, and then play – and win – five inning games in the round-of-32 and round-of-16 just to have the opportunity to play three more five-inning games on Monday.
After a long day made longer by late afternoon/early evening rain delays, the quarterfinal field was finally set and the bracket-play seedings had been tossed recklessly into the warm, moisture-filled tropical breeze. Simply put, Monday morning’s pairings had just about everyone scratching their collective head.
No. 3-seeded Team Elite 17u Prime (Ga.) brought some semblance of order to the bracket, and will take its 6-0-0 record against the No. 43 Scorpions 2019 Prime (4-0-2) out of Florida. The Scorps 2019 Prime were one of the tournament champion favorites coming into the event but their 1-0-2 pool-play record relegated them to the No. 43 seed. It would be wise to keep an eye on the Scorps Prime on Monday.
The other quarterfinal games pit the No. 16 Florida Burn Platinum Burn (6-0-0) against the No. 57 Team GA/MBA Gold (5-1-0), the No. 20 New York-based MLB Breakthrough Series (6-0-0) against the No. 60 Georgia-based East Cobb Astros (5-1-0) and the No. 15 Florida-based Scorpions South 2019 (6-0-0) going head-to-head with the No. 42 Florida stalwart Elite Squad (5-1-0). All quarters and semis will be five-inning contests.
The sweet-16 games were the most intriguing contests on Sunday’s menu, of course, because they provided the gateway to Monday’s quarters. And one of the most intriguing matchups at the Lee Country Player Development Complex featured a couple of programs with long histories of success at PG national championship tournaments.
In this corner – or dugout, if you will – were the Sarasota-based and No. 16-seeded Florida Burn Platinum 2019 Platinum, a program that is never easy to be reckoned with and is under the direction of longtime program coach/right-hand man Jeff Callan.
In the other dugout sat the North Carolina-based South Charlotte Panthers 2019 with their venerable skipper Don Hutchins still calling the shots. The table, it’s said, was set. And as it turned out, things were decided with a preciseness that can only be expected from two of the top programs in the country.
2019 right-hander/utility Cameron Wademan threw five innings of shutout, five-hit ball with three strikeouts and one walk and scored the game’s only run in the Burn’s 1-0 victory over the Panthers.
The Burn scored the game’s only run when Wademan led-off the first with a single to left-field, moved to second on a perfect sacrifice bunt by Danny Rodriguez, stole third and then scored on a groundball fielder’s choice off the bat of Kevin Dubrule. Sabermetrics guru Bill James couldn’t have written it up any better.
“We tell them we’ve got to throw strikes and we cannot strikeout; you can’t give away any outs in a five-inning game,” Callan said Sunday. “You have to constantly put pressure on the defense by staying out of the air and putting the ball in play on the ground and run.
“We do have some speed and we do a really nice job with some guys who can base-hit bunt – we get bunts down – so we do play a lot of small ball.”
After completing pool-play 3-0-0, the Burn 2019 Platinum dusted-off the No. 49 Canes Gold 17u and the No. 17 Florida Stealth 2020 in the rounds-of-64 and -32, respectively.
They boast a talented and highly regarded lineup led by a solid group of 2019s, including third baseman Josh Rivera (No. 114-ranked, Florida commit), catcher Matthew Powell (No. 268, Florida) and the outfielder Rodriguez (No. 317, uncommitted). The middle-infielder Dubrule (top-500, Army) and left-hander Parker Messick (top-500, Florida State) are also part of the roster.
“The majority of this team has played together for a long time, and while we don’t have a lot of the arms we had during the summer but we have some guys that are infielders and pitch a little bit for their high schools, and they’re grinding a little bit,” Callan said. “Our pitching has been fabulous … and now we’re starting to hit a little bit. We’re going to have to continue to hit because the well is running dry quick.”
The Panthers got a well-pitched game from a pair of 2019 right-handers, Jackson Bertelson and Trey Donathan; they combined on a four-inning three-hitter, striking out four and walking two. Their top 2019s are right-hander/outfielder Trey Tujetsch (No. 221, South Carolina), left-hander/outfielder J.D. Brock (No. 278, Clemson), corner-infielder Caleb Cozart (top-500, North Carolina) and outfielder Hite Merrifield (top-500, Wake Forest).
“It’s been a great group of guys,” Hutchins said. “The top end of the team is committed to some ACC and SEC schools and then we’ve got just a real great complement of mid-tier guys that are hard workers, grinders, and all of them are going to play some college ball.
“We try to get them to hit their stride at this point and they’ve shown that they’ve done that to a degree,” he continued. “We’ve been lucky enough this week that our pitchers have been real, real good so we’ve saved our arms; we don’t come with infinite number of arms.”
The Burn 2019 Platinum will be favored in its quarterfinal against the No. 57 Team GA/MBA Gold Monday morning, but GA/MBA already up-ended No. 8 Team All-American, No. 40 The Clubhouse Elite and the No. 9 Midland Redskins in bracket-play on Sunday. They won’t be intimidated by the No. 16 Florida Burn Platinum. Callan is looking forward to taking this group into what could potentially be three games of at least five innings apiece on Monday.
As is always the case when dealing with 32 first-round playoffs games, there were a number of upsets on Sunday, at least when viewed through the seedings. The toll was especially heavy at the top of the ladder, with the Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 10 seeds all being showed the door in the round-of-64.
It started right at the top with No. 64 Nelson Baseball School Black (Ga.) dumping No. 1 Team Ohio Pro Select, and the ripple effect resonated throughout the top 10 seeds. No. 63 Cangelosi 2019 Black (Ill.) way-laid the No. 2 Big Stix Gamers (Ga..), the No. 61 SBA Canes Marucci/Mendez (N.C.) dropped the No. 4 KBC Underclass Prime (Ky.) and the No. 60 east Cobb Astros (Ga.) dropped the No. 5 Canes 17u (Va.).
Additionally, the No. 58 Dulins Dodgers Henson (Tenn.) got past the No. 7 MN Blizzard Blue 2019 (Minn.), Team GA/MBA 17u Gold (Ga.) topped the No. 8 Team All-American Underclass (Pa.) and No. 55 5 Star National Dobbs (Ga.) eliminated No. 10 Team DeMarini Elite (Ill.).
Out of the top-10 seeded teams in the field, only the No. 3 Team Elite 17u Prime (Ga.), the No. 6 Tri-State Arsenal Prime and the No. 9 Midland Redskins (Ohio) advanced to the round-of-32.
A handful of those first-round upsets were a bit of an anomaly. 5 Star National, in particular, boasted a roster with five top 160-ranked 2019 prospects and was considered a pre-tournament favorite to win the whole thing but dropped its last pool-play game to the Taconic Rangers and needed an at-large berth to reach bracket-play.
The upsets probably aren’t a thing of the past, with the Nos. 3, 15, 16, 20, 42, 43, 57 and 60 seeds still standing on a Monday morning. The Florida Burn 2019 Platinum are right there once again, which is exactly where Callan and the program counted on them being. Welcome to the Great 8.
“At this age-level, I expect us to move on to the playoffs and anything after that is a bonus,” he said. “The games are so close together with arms and stuff … and we are able to bring back two good guys (on Monday). We’ll be hard-pressed but I’m sure by that third game tomorrow everybody will be throwing their right-fielder and their shortstop or whatever.
“But the five inning games does make it a little bit easier,” Callan concluded. “In these five inning games we really try to score a run an inning. If we get a guy on we’re going to find a way to get him to second and try to score a run an inning and hopefully it will work out.”