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Tournaments | Story | 7/27/2020

Knights 15U winning WS arms race

Jeff Dahn

Photo: Jack Bennett (Perfect Game)

SANFORD, Fla. – If any conclusions could be made after three days of play at the Perfect Game 15U World Series, one is that the boys from Tennessee can pitch it a little bit.

Pitchers from the Nashville-based Knights Baseball 15U Platinum turned in quality performance after quality performance helping the Knights 15U win three of their first four games at the prestigious 30-team tournament. And that even includes a 1-0 loss to the Elite Squad 15U National Monday morning.

“We’re in a lot better position than I thought we might be in when we first came in here,” Knights 15U Platinum head coach Jason Anderegg told PG shortly after addressing his team following its first loss in pool-play.

Losing one pool-play game when a total of five will be played does not mean all bets are off, of course, especially at an event like the 15U WS where fortunes regularly turn on one pitch, one swing of the bat or one bad bounce.

It’s for that reason that the Knights 15U Platinum just might have an ace up their sleeve – maybe even three or four aces, when it comes down to it – with their strong pitching staff and the solid defensive play the pitchers usually get behind them. The Knights allowed just two runs on 10 hits and committed only one error in their first four games.

But sometimes even that isn’t enough. Despite the fact that 2022 righthander Jack Bennett allowed only one run on four hits while striking out eight and walking two in five innings of work, and 2023 righty Max Cassle threw a perfect sixth with one strikeout, the Knights 15U Platinum still lost to the Elite Squad.

That was because they ran into the Squad’s 2023 lefty David Davila, a Florida State commit who threw five innings of no-hit ball while striking out eight and walking five. The Knights Platinum didn’t get their first hit until Jayden Davis smacked a two-out double in the sixth, and then when they got base-runners on in the seventh, they failed to execute.

“Coming into this game we hadn’t been in too many tight games,” Anderegg said. “We’ve had some tight games with the East Cobb Astros a couple of times. We had a couple of tight games yesterday that we came out on the good end of.

“It just boils down to situational hitting. We situational-hit all day yesterday and then today we just couldn’t get that big two-out hit to score any runs.”

And so it goes in wild and wacky Pool D where the Knights 15U Platinum, the Elite Squad 15U National and Eagles Baseball all sat at 3-1-0 when play concluded Monday. Only two of the three will advance to the Gold Bracket playoffs, and the Knights can thank their pitching for keeping them in the hunt.

In a 2-0 win over FTB Tucci to kick-off the tournament on Saturday, 2023 lefthander Eli Huddleston twirled a complete-game, three-hit shutout, striking out six and walking one. In the first of two games Sunday, 2022 righty Will Dugan allowed just one run on one hit in six innings, striking out 10 and walking one in a 4-1 win over mighty Eagles Baseball.

Game two on Sunday saw 2023 lefthander Tanner Lane and 2023 righty Jack Brafa combine on a one-hitter in a 5-0 blanking of Power Baseball 2023. Lane gave up the one hit while working the first 5 1/3 innings and Brafa retired all five batters he faced, striking out three of them.

While the Knights Platinum’s pitching has been stellar the offense has only been just good enough at tines. They totaled 11 runs in the four games with only Davis, Stone Lawless and Jaron Elkins collecting as many as three hits; eight of those nine were singles with Davis adding that double on Monday.

Anderegg has had most of this group of players together since they were 13-year-olds and he described them as “just a very good ‘team’.” Like most of the 30 teams here this week, the Knights do enjoy some star-power at the top of the roster and that benefits the entire group.

It starts with 2023 shortstop/right-hander Walter Ford, an alumnus of the 2019 PG 14U Select Baseball Festival and an Alabama commit ranked No. 15 nationally in his class.

Right there in step with Ford is versatile 2023 lefthander/first baseman/outfielder Miller Green, the No. 45-ranked overall 2023 prospect. Another 2023, catcher/corner-infielder Stone Lawless, is a Tennessee commit ranked No. 124.

“We have those top-notch guys at the top and they bring those other guys up,” Anderegg said. “When it’s all said and done we might not have the top of the top prospects but I think we have a pretty good team because they work well together.”

Davis is a top-500 2022 infielder/catcher/utility; Thomas Cooper a top-1,000 2022 utility player and Jaron Elkins a top-1,000 2023 outfielder/middle-infielder who also contribute regularly.

As noted, the Knights Baseball organization is based in Nashville and the 15U Platinum roster is largely populated with players from right around the Nashville area, although Ford and Lawless are from Alabama. Many of them attend the same Tennessee high schools and, conversely, many of them are high school rivals.

“Like I said, we’ve been together since we about 13,” Anderegg said. “We kind of hand-picked three or four of the top players from each of our 12U teams, and so they knew each other. They all like to win, and it’s just a good group of kids and they’ve just kept getting better.”

Anderegg said this summer has been a struggle for the entire Knights Baseball organization because Nashville has been so far behind the curve in the battle to contain the spread of the coronavirus and COVID-19.

Lawless, who attends high school in Alabama, was able to play 19 games with his high school team before the season was shut-down and that was more games than all of the other Knights 15u Platinum players combined. In fact, there are a lot of younger kids in the program who are yet to play in a high school game and are still relying on their middle-school experiences to get them through.

“Some of our schools opted not to play this year and they didn’t get any practice or playing time,” Anderegg said. “The first few weeks were really tough trying to get them up to par. But we’ve been playing a lot of 17U and 18U stuff so that’s helped us with seeing better pitching, seeing better competition and having to bring our ‘A’ game to the ballpark every day.”

The Knights 15U Platinum did get a chance to compete against their age-group peers in two high-profile PG tournaments before arriving here, and they competed very well, thank you.

They were at the PG 15U National Elite Championship in Hoover, Ala., June 19-22, where they finished with a 3-2-0 mark; both losses were to the East Cobb Astros 15U, once in pool-play and again in the quarterfinals of the playoffs.

The team made a return trip to Hoover just over a week ago for the PG WWBA 15U East Championship and won five of their six games with the only loss coming to the Memphis Tigers 15U Lyons in the semifinals.

“They love the atmosphere of these big games,” Anderegg said Monday while looking around the BOOMBAH Sports Complex. “This is probably the best tournament we’ve ever been to as far as top-to-bottom talent, and just having to win every game. We love having the pressure on us every game to win.

“We don’t like those games where you know you’re going to win 15-0,” he added. “It’s pointless (showing) up at 8 o’clock in the morning to do that, whereas these games here, every game’s been a must-win game; that’s awesome.”

This is the first time a Knights Baseball squad has been invited to the PG 15U World Series and, quite honestly, the program really doesn’t travel to Florida all that often – Atlanta and Hoover are more popular destinations. Both the Knights Baseball 15U and 16U teams are here at their respective PG World Series this week.

“We just wanted to see how we measured (up) with the best around,” Anderegg said. “We will be coming back in the future. This is too good of a tournament to pass up on so hopefully they’ll keep inviting us.”

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