FORT MYERS, Fla. – More than 250 teams played 560 baseball games at dozens of venues in Southwest Florida’s Lee and Charlotte counties over the past five days, all part of an almost epic undertaking known as the Perfect Game WWBA Underclass World Championship.
It is likely that the majority of those games contained their own little twists and turns, their own ups and downs, their own moments of surprise and suspense, drama and disappointment. How fitting, then, that Game 560 – the championship between the SF Giants Scout Team-Christman and the EvoShield Canes 17 played on Field 2 at the Player Development 5-Plex – would include all those things and more, a smorgasbord of delight for any baseball fan.
The Indiana-based and No. 25-seeded SF Giants Scout Team blew a seven-run lead in the bottom of the third inning in a game scheduled for only five innings, rallied from a five-run deficit in the bottom of the eighth, and then finally plated the game-winner in the bottom of the ninth in their dramatic 14-13, nine-inning victory over the Virginia-based and No. 34-seeded EvoShield Canes 17.
The game, a 3-hour affair played on a sunny, warm and extremely comfortable – amazing, actually – early October afternoon on the Southwest Florida Gulf Coast, was one of those instant classics, even as both teams seemed intent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Until one – the SF Giants Scout Team-Christman – reversed the trend.
“These guys are resilient; they just keep coming back and you leave them alone,” SF Giants Scout Team head coach and San Francisco Giants Indiana area scout Kevin Christman said moments before getting doused with a cooler of Gatorade. “They know what they’re doing and it’s not orchestrated by a coach – it’s the unity and it’s the togetherness that they have.”
The Giants ST (9-0-0) led the Canes 17 (8-1-0), 8-1, after three innings of play, but the Canes pushed across seven runs in the top of the fourth to tie the game at 8 and send it into extra innings. The Canes then looked in control when they put up a five-spot in the top of the eighth for a 13-8 advantage, only to watch the Giants answer with five of their own in the bottom of the frame to knot things at 13.
And then, with two-out in the bottom of the ninth, the Giants’ Jared Poland singled, stole second, advanced to third on an error and scored the winning run when Cameron Swanger delivered a line-drive, walk-off single to leftfield, driving in his fifth run of the game.
“We knew, no matter what, we weren’t going to give up,” the Giants’ Gage Hughes said. “We fought until the end and the results came out in our favor.”
There was pandemonium on one side of the field, dejection on the other, but both teams deserved a round of standing-O's for the relentless efforts they put forth, considering both were playing their ninth game overall and sixth since Sunday morning (four of the six were five-inning contests).
The Giants totaled their 14 runs – 11 of them earned – on 15 hits, and also took advantage of five walks, three hit batters and a couple of Canes 17 errors; they left seven runners on base. The Canes totaled 14 hits, were walked six times and plunked three other times, and left nine on base; all 13 of their runs were earned.
Swanger was 4-for-6 with a triple, five RBI and three runs scored in the championship game; Poland was 3-for-4 with a double and four runs. AJ Fritz, Jacob Daftari and Grant Johnston each drove in two runs apiece for the Giants.
Joe Gray Jr., the uncommitted No. 4 overall national prospect in the class of 2018, went 3-for-5 with a double, a walk, three RBI and two runs to lead the Canes 17. Nicholas Northcut doubled twice, drove in a run and scored two, and Chase Sanguinetti and Gray Betts drove in two runs apiece.
Hughes, a 6-foot, 160-pound 2018 middle-infielder from Portsmouth, Ohio, and a U. of Cincinnati commit ranked No. 436 nationally, finished the tournament hitting .407 (11-for-27) with two doubles, a triple, 13 RBI and 11 runs scored and was named the Most Valuable Player.
“This is one of the greatest groups of boys I’ve ever played with, and I’m looking forward to being back with them next year,” he said. “This is a great experience and a great tournament (and) coming into this we knew we had a shot; we weren’t going to quit no matter what. We were going to fight until the last play, the last out.” Swanger hit .308, with two triples, a home run, 12 RBI and seven runs, a pretty impressive tournament appearance of his own.
The Giants ST’s Garrett Burhenn, a 6-foot-2, 180-pound unranked, uncommitted right-hander from Indianapolis, worked 9 2/3 shutout innings over three appearances, allowing four hits while striking out 11 without issuing a walk (one HBP), and was named the Most Valuable Pitcher.
The players on the SF Giants Scout Team-Christman roster are all 2018s and all come from Indiana, Ohio or Kentucky; five prospects have made college commitments to Indiana (two), Ohio State, Cincinnati and Louisville.
“We’re not from all over the country, we just come together and we play as a team,” Christman said. “We come from a little three-state area, play together for four or five weeks and then come down here and try to compete. These kids deserve all the credit in the world; they blended, they jelled.”
The Canes 17 had several players enjoy outstanding MVP-caliber tournaments. Northcut, a 6-foot, 200-pound 2018 infielder and right-handed pitcher from Mason, Ohio, who has committed to Vanderbilt and is ranked 140 nationally, led the way.
He was 11-for-22 (.500) at the plate, with three doubles, a triple, a home run, 14 RBI and eight runs scored. He also made three pitching appearances in relief, and allowed only one hit and no runs while striking out six without a walk in 3 1/3 innings. Sanguinetti hit .455 with a double, a home run, 10 RBI and six runs, and Gray Jr. was at .429 with two doubles, four RBI and 11 runs.
The semifinal field was an unlikely collection of four teams, unlikely not because of the talent present on the teams involved but strictly in terms of the seeding – Nos. 25 vs. 29 and Nos. 34 vs. 38; the final-four represented the states of Florida, Indiana, Virginia and Missouri. The quarterfinal-round of the playoffs were played earlier Monday morning with the states of Georgia (East Cobb Astros) and Pennsylvania (U.S. Elite Baseball 2018s) also represented.
The two semifinal games featured some outstanding pitching performances and timely hitting, with the Canes 17 escaping the No. 38 Royals Scout Team, 3-2, and the Giants Scout Team getting past the No. 29 FTB55 Elite, 5-1, both in the scheduled five innings.
Northcut erased a 2-0 deficit with one swing of the bat, blasting a three-run home to leftfield with one-out in the bottom of the fourth to lift the Canes to their victory over the Missouri-based Royals Scout Team (7-1-0).
He also teamed with 2018 right-hander Alberto Gonzalez (No. 173) on a five-hitter, working the last two one-hit, shutout innings and striking out two. Drew Howard delivered a two-run single in the top of the second to account for the Royals’ scoring.
2018 right-hander Braydon Tucker (No. 356, Indiana) allowed one earned run on five hits in a five-inning complete game in the Giants’ victory over Florida-based FTB55 Elite (7-1-0). Hughes came through with a two-out, RBI triple in the bottom of the third and also delivered an RBI single as part of a four-run fourth; Bryce Johnson also had an RBI single in the frame. PJ Heintz drove in a run with a triple in the bottom of the seventh to account for FTB55’s lone run.
At the end of a long day and a long tournament, Christman took the time to comment on the importance of the PG WWBA Underclass World Championship, which is providing these underclass prospects with priceless exposure in front of college coaches and recruiting coordinators.
But he also couldn’t get his mind off the championship game his team had just won and all that was required of the young men to accomplish the feat.
“There’s a prize at the end, and they’re here to show off their skills,” Christman said. “But to win this thing, it’s not about the individual people showing off their skill-sets. It’s how they jell together and how they had the unity to put it all together and play as a team.
“We were in it, we were out of it, we were in it, we were out of it, and that’s the way the whole weekend went,” he concluded. “In order to do something like this – the way we won this last game – it just came together because I think they all thought about each other first.”
2016 WWBA Underclass World Championship runner-up: EvoShield Canes 17
2016 WWBA Underclass World Championship MVP: Gage Hughes, SF Giants Scout Team
2016 WWBA Underclass World Championship MV-Pitcher: Garrett Burhenn, SF Giants Scout Team
