CEDAR
RAPIDS, Iowa – The Racine, Wis. based Hitters Baseball club is
accustomed to playing deep into the playoffs at the WWBA Kernels
Foundation Championship. The program enjoyed a third-place finish a
year ago, falling to the eventual event champions St. Louis Gamers
17u team in the semifinals, and took the championship trophy home
with them in both 2002 and 2007.
Led
by long-time Head Coach and owner R.J. Fergus, this year the Hitters
have brought two teams with them to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The Rawlings
Hitters National Baseball Club 2015's are made up almost entirely of
2015 grads from Southeastern Wisconsin. The Rawlings Hitters National
Baseball Club 2016's is made up exclusively of players from the 2016
class, a class that is stacking up to be Wisconsin's best in over 10
years.
Shortstop
Gavin Lux, currently the 124th player overall in PG's
class of 2016 rankings, is the standout on this team. Already
committed to Virginia Tech, he is joined by other notable Wisconsin
2016 players including fellow infielder Justin Lavey (ranked 249th in the 2016 class, Louisville commit), catcher Ben Rortvedt (259,
Arkansas) and outfielders/righthanded pitchers Cyrillo Watson (456,
Illinois) and Dominic Clementi (473, Michigan).
Lux,
Lavey, Clementi and Rortvedt serve as the team's 1-2-3-4 hitters in
the Hitters lineup, and have helped propel the the team to the
playoffs by claiming their pool, arguably the deepest pool at this
year's Kernels Foundation Championship.
Those
players also represent five of the seven currently listed among the
top 500 of Perfect Game's aforementioned 2016 player rankings. You
have to go back to 2004 and 2005 to find more than a small handful of
players from the Dairy State listed among those year's respective
rankings.
The
most notable of those players is Sturgeon Bay native Erik Cordier,
drafted by the Royals in the second round of the 2004 draft and
currently a member of the San Francisco Giants bullpen thanks to his
100 mph fastball.
“I
think our class is really good in Wisconsin,” Lux said after the
team's 2-0 over Elite Baseball Training 2015 on Saturday. “I think
it's going to keep getting better and it's good to see a state like
this get some recognition because usually there's not a whole lot of
depth of talent.”
It's
hard to determine if this is a one-year anomaly or a sign of things
to come from Wisconsin, but programs like the Hitters are helping to
put the state, and its talent, on the right track.
“I
think it's programs like the Hitters, and then there's a couple of
other pretty good programs in Wisconsin, and I think that contributes
to it a lot,” Lux added. “We're kind of sick and tired taking
losses from teams from farther down (south). We're starting to work
harder and moving toward the right direction.”
With
a recently completed 40,700 square foot facility located in
Caledonia, Wis., less than 20 miles south of Milwaukee, the Hitters
are committed to helping their players, of all ages, train year
round. The new building will be full of hitting cages, pitching
mounds as well as a full-sized infield.
“It's
going to be really exciting,” Hitters Coach John Lequia said of the
new facility. “One of the things you struggle with being up north
is the weather. Now we have a field to work with. It helps when
you're working with different coverages defensively. We can just get
more ground ball work.
“It's
really going to help our younger teams be a little more successful.
It should help it be not such a big transition out of the winter and
into the spring.”
The
Hitters were faced with their toughest task on Saturday, facing the
powerful Elite Baseball Training 2015 club, a team that boasts 17
Division I recruits on their 18 player roster. And
the pitcher that took the mound was the highest ranked of all of
those players, righthander Drake Fellows, currently ranked 21st in the 2016 class.
Fellows
did not disappoint, throwing in the upper-80s throughout his complete
game performance in which he allowed only four base hits and one walk
while striking out six as he pounded the strike zone.
However,
the Hitters are plenty familiar with Fellows and Elite Baseball and
were able to scratch across runs in both the first and seventh
innings on their way to a 2-0 win to spoil Fellows' effort.
“Those
games are the best,” Lux said of he and his team's performance on
Saturday afternoon. “Elite's a great team, and we love playing
against them. Any chance we can get I'd take playing a team like
that, and a game like that, any day.”
“It's
great. They're starting to come together as a team,” Lequia added
of his team's performance. “The kid out there (Fellows), he's
really good. We got to him early which made the game a little easier.
We got his pitch count up and got guys on base, put a little pressure
on him and it ended up working out.”
Three
pitchers for the hitters combined on the shutout. Starter Ryan Selner
worked the first three frames and didn't allow a base hit.
“He
doesn't throw anything straight,” Lequia said of his starter, who
threw his fastball in the low-80s. “He kept getting ahead of
hitters and limited mistakes. (His fastball has) like a natural cut.
I never showed him it, and I don't know where it came from, but he
has that natural cutter which is nice.”
Matt
McCarty worked the next three innings with Takoda Metoxen closing the
game out in the seventh, but it may have been the infield defense
behind the Hitters pitchers that stood out the most in this game.
“The
defense behind the guys was really great,” Lequia said. “There
were no errors, we stole a couple hits, and it's nice to throw three
different guys out there and they all can command the zone and
succeed.”
Lux
in particular played spectacular defensively, ranging seemingly
effortlessly to both his left and right while routinely delivering
strikes to retire baserunners on at least a half dozen plays.
“He's
put in a ton of work lately,” Lequia said of his star shortstop.
“He had an arm issue earlier in the year, it wasn't serious, but
mentally throwing the ball was something for him, it kind of effected
him. But he's put in all the work that he needed to and it shows. He
made a lot of plays out there, he looked really good today.”
Lux,
a lefthanded hitter listed at 6-foot-1 and 165-pounds, is built rail
thin and routinely displays graceful, athletic actions on the
infield. Hailing from Kenosha, Wis., Lux attends Indian Trial
Academy.
He,
Clementi and Watson were all members of the third place Hitters
Baseball team from a year ago, with Lux garnering All-Tournament
honors by going 5-for-14 (.357) and supplying several key base hits
to go along with his usual rock solid defense. As
he continues to improve Lux is quick to recognize the amount of work
necessary for him to reach his lofty potential.
“It's
mostly getting stronger,” Lux said. “Working on my consistency,
working to hit the ball the other way. That's what I'm really
focusing on.”
While
those are his individual goals, the team comes first at tournament
events such as the Kernels Foundation Championship, especially with
so much on the line.
“I
hope that we can keep rolling like this,” Lux added. “We played
great today, we've played some really good teams, and I hope we can
keep rolling like that and get down there (to Jupiter).”
So
far so good for the Rawlings Hitters National Baseball Club 2016's,
as they not only cemented their playoff spot with a 4-2 win over the
DuPage Training Academy Wildcats on Sunday to move to 3-0, but they
also secured the No. 1 overall seed. Now their attention shifts to
their next game, a quarterfinal matchup at Perfect Game Field at 8:30
p.m.
“I
played in this when I was a kid,” Lequia said of the importance
winning this event. “I played for R.J. I remember coming out here,
great tournament, there's always good talent around here. Getting a
chance to go to Jupiter, it's nuts down there, that's a good place to
go. So anything that gets you there is cool.”