Day 1 recap | Sarasota Day 2 feature | Concordia Lutheran Day 2 feature


The theme of the morning action Friday morning at LakePoint was cold and rain and wind, never a comfortable combination for baseball.

The irony is that the Shaw Sports Turf fields are kind of a mixed blessing in situations like this. They drain like a colander, which means there is never an issue with the surface itself. If it rains hard, no matter how hard, you can be playing a couple of minutes after the rain stops. But if it is just miserable and wet, you can keep playing in situations that you would never consider being on the field with a different surface.

Fortunately the rain left the area around noon, leaving just the cold and the wind.

The team that had to bear the brunt of the elements was the DeSoto Central Jaguars, who were scheduled to play at both 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. against the Collierville Dragons and the Sarasota Sailors, respectively.

DeSoto Central clearly wasn't on its game for the 9:00 a.m. contest, even with PG All-American Austin Riley on the mound. Riley walked five hitters and allowed five runs in three innings of work, pitching mostly with an 85-88 mph fastball that topped out at 91 mph briefly after he allowed a towering and perhaps wind-blown home run to 6-foot-4, 230-pound Collierville first baseman Parker Phillips. Just like teammate Dallas Woolfolk the day before, Riley failed to mix his pitches effectively, throwing only five breaking balls among his 72 pitches. He'll get a pass on this outing from any scout who saw it.

To their credit, DeSoto Central came back in their second game, a repeat of the finals of the 2014 PG High School Showdown, and overcame an early 2-0 deficit to beat Sarasota 5-3 in eight innings. Mississippi State commit Keegan James was outstanding on the mound for the Jaguars, throwing 81 pitches over seven innings while allowing four hits, no earned runs and no walks. James pitched in the 86-89 mph range with his fastball and did show a willingness to mix in his curveball and changeup to keep the Sarasota hitters off his fastball.

Sarasota's Jordan Gubelman virtually matched James' performance with six innings of strong work himself, allowing five hits and a pair of runs while striking out nine hitters. Gubelman, a North Carolina signee, used a very lively upper-80s fastball that topped out at 90 mph to go with a big breaking curveball in keeping the DeSoto Central hitters at bay.

One thing that might have contributed to DeSoto Central's uneven play the first two days was losing their leadoff hitter and center fielder Brant Blaylock during the first inning of Thursday's game. Another Mississippi State signee, Blaylock left the contest after lining a leadoff double to left-center field and has not played again.

Woolfolk is best known as a pitching prospect but he's been impressive with the bat as well, going 7-for-9 at the plate over three contests.

The 3:00 p.m. time slot brought three games and more than enough of the “wow” factor.

Ke'Bryan Hayes' hitting approach the past two years has been consistently based on a level swing path and an alley-to-alley line drive approach. He'll show some occasional lift in batting practice but even that is rare. He's so disciplined in that approach that scouts have frequently talked to his father, long-time MLB third baseman Charlie Hayes, about his son's interest in turning and lifting the ball.

During Hayes' second at-bat for Concordia Lutheran against the Savannah Christian Raiders, I wondered what Hayes would do if he actually got a fastball in the zone, as he had been pitched around in virtually every at-bat to that point. As if on cue, Hayes got a fastball middle in and drove it high and long off the scoreboard in left-center field. In his next at-bat, Hayes turned on another ball and pulled another long and high drive over the left field fence for his second bomb of the day.

It was the first time in countless viewings that I'd seen Hayes do that to a baseball and it was fun to see.

Sophomore second baseman Evan Jarvis had a big day for Concordia Lutheran, going 3-for-3 with a home run of his own.

But the best game of the time slot and what might end up being the best game of event (and many additional events) came between the Parkview Panthers and the No. 2 nationally ranked IMG Academy Ascenders. Parkview ended up winning 2-1 in nine innings, with the game seemingly hanging on every pitch over the last four frames.

The story of the game was the two 2016 starting pitchers, especially IMG southpaw Jason Groome. The 6-foot-6, 180-pound Groome, throwing in short sleeves despite the chilly conditions (he said afterwards he had simply forgot them), started out throwing 93-95 mph in the first inning before settling in at 91-93 and retiring the first 15 Parkview hitters, nine of them on strikes.

The problem for IMG was Parkview's Will Ethridge, a Mississippi commit, was equally effective with some very high quality stuff of his own. Ethridge pitched consistently low in the zone with a mid- to upper-80s fastball and used a plus low-80s sharp-breaking slider as his out-pitch.

Both teams were able to scrape together a run late. Groome ended up throwing seven innings, totaling 86 total pitches while walking none and striking out 11 hitters. Ethridge finished with nine strikeouts and a lone walk in six innings and 79 pitches.

Parkview eventually broke through with a run in the top of ninth inning when a single by second baseman Daino Deas was mishandled by an IMG outfielder, allowing shortstop Trevor Brown to score. It was fitting that Deas and Brown combined to win the game offensively, as the middle infield duo were spectacular at times on defense.

This was the first time that this scout had seen Groome, who is currently ranked No. 4 in the PG 2016 class rankings. It would be hard to be more impressed. The New Jersey native is very young for a junior and will be one of the youngest prospects in the class when June, 2016 comes around. It will be a long time before he shaves regularly and it's scary to think about what his raw stuff might develop into as he physically matures. But perhaps the most impressive thing about Groome is simply how easy he throws a baseball. It isn't an exaggeration to say that he looks like he's throwing batting practice – only with a blindingly fast left arm – he throws with so little apparent effort.

Groome isn't a finished product by any means with his stuff. He throws his curveball and changeup for strikes but he doesn't throw either as hard as he could and likely eventually will, and the Parkview hitters made the most of their non-bunt contact off Groome's secondary pitches. But that is nothing that repetitions and coaching can't improve upon and Groome has plenty of time for both of those things.

The 8:30/9:00 p.m. games brought another weather element into the day's mix; heavy swirling fog that shrouded the LakePoint lights and seemed like rain at times. It was hard to imagine that the Saturday forecast was for the mid-70s.

Kennesaw Mountain is a very impressive team and already holds a victory over Lambert High School, the top ranked team in the PG preseason high school poll. They faced off against the always talented Venice Indians and won an intense battle 4-1 to move into the semifinals.

The two things that stand out about the Mustangs is that they play a very fast brand of baseball, almost like a high scoring basketball team, and that they are a team that has nine players on the field that can all contribute on both sides of the ball. Everyone on the team can run, with the exception of stud catcher Tyler Stephenson, and they are hyper aggressive in the use of their speed. And there might not be a high school player in the country with more impactful speed than leadoff hitter Reggie Pruitt.

Pruitt, as he did on Thursday, scored another self-generated run, one that everyone in the stands knew was coming. He walked with two outs in the fifth inning of a tie game and then took a very aggressive lead at first base with a lefthander on the mound, going on first movement and stealing second base easily. Pruitt took off on the first pitch to steal third and the batter hit a high hopper to the shortstop. When the shortstop took his eye off the ball to see what Pruitt was doing, he briefly kicked the ball to his right, which was all Pruitt needed to tear around third and score with a head-first slide that left him a good 15 feet beyond home plate as if he was being pulled by a jet ski.

Notably, another of Kennesaw Mountain's runs scored when a runner went second to home on an infield grounder.

Righthander Zach Goodman, a Clemson signee, was outstanding on the mound for the Mustangs, throwing a 90-pitch complete game and allowing only two hits, one a solo home run by Venice shortstop Scott Dubrule. Goodman doesn't have a delivery that would indicate that he should be able to pound the strike zone – it's a whirling dervish delivery that ends up with a cross-body straight over-the-top release point – but that's exactly what he did for seven innings. Goodman topped out at 90 mph and consistently kept the Venice hitters off balance with a big breaking curveball.

IMG Academy recovered from their loss to Parkview to wallop Houston in the other late contest, knocking out 14 hits, including a pair from hot-hitting outfielder Eric Feliz and a long home run from first baseman Nick Patten. The 6-foot-3, 190-pound Patten, a Pennsylvania native, leads the team in home runs with five already, according to teammates. He is signed with Delaware.

Junior southpaw Dion Henderson, a Michigan native, had a strong outing on the mound for the Ascenders, throwing 5 2/3 innings while topping out at 90 mph.