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Tournaments  | Story  | 7/28/2022

3n2 Sticks Playing For Name on Front of Uni

Riley Sheppard     
Photo: Ty Waid (Perfect Game)
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- It doesn’t take a ton of research to see the level of talent that comes from the Arkansas Sticks organization.

With 41 players taken in the MLB Draft since 2018, including 13 alone this year, the Sticks have become a powerhouse in development.



However, their focus is not only developing them as great baseball players, but fantastic men as well.

“I’ve been playing with Sticks since the eighth grade,” Arkansas commit Ty Waid said Wednesday. “[Coach Chase Brewster] has helped me on and off the field with a lot of other things than just baseball. One thing that he's helped a lot with is helping me learn to play for the name on the front instead of the name on the back.”

Playing for their name on the front has sparked a 4-0-1 start to 3n2 Sticks Brewster’s run at the 17U BCS National Championship.

After a 0-0 tie against Blizzard Elite Blue 2023 early Wednesday morning, the team bounced right back to defeat CBU 2023 United, 6-4.

“We’ve always said, ‘Hitting comes and goes, but pitching and defense has kept us in it,''' TCU commit Tripp Landers said after the victory. “This game we found a way, it wasn’t pretty but we found a way to win because pitching and defense will always be there.”

The previously mentioned pitching against CBU was started by right-hander and Arkansas commit Lance Davis.

The 2024 graduate threw 94 pitches over his 4 2/3 innings, punching out his four victims with his combination of off-speed action.

The Sticks got on the board first following Kade Smith being hit by a pitch with two outs. Waid would advance him to second with a single, and extra bases from Jayce Blalock brought him home for the first run of the ballgame.

The combination of Waid and Blalock was not finished there. Down two outs once again in the third, Blalock picked up his second RBI of the game with a single to center.

But CBU was not going down quietly, picking up four runs over the next three innings to take a one-run lead.

Included in this run was an RBI double from Brian Perez to drive in Luca Mendez, who led off the third with extra bases of his own.

Down a run entering the sixth, the Sticks kicked things off just about as well as they could have, reaching base three consecutive times including an RBI double from Charlie Carter.

And with the game tied, Smith stepped to bat with the bases loaded and two outs, roping the second pitch he saw to left field to bring in the go-ahead runs.

Currently ranked in the top-100 among 17U ball clubs, the team has as good a coaching staff as one could get, including former Arkansas Tech baseball player and All-American Cesar Abreu, Crowder College pitching coach Tyler Sawyer, and current St. Louis Cardinals scout Dirk Kinney.

“When things aren’t going their way, how they behave, can they deal with adversity, can they deal with an umpire that’s tough sometimes?” Kinney said postgame. “It's something that I thoroughly enjoy. I'm sort of sad, I got to go do stuff for St. Louis now, so that's part of it sometimes, but I got to spend most of the summer, all but the Draft, I got to spend with these guys so it was fun.”
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