FORT MYERS, Fla. – The five PG BCS Finals for the 14u through 18u age-groups are the only Perfect Game national championship tournaments that use metal composite (BBCOR) bats instead of wood. And after playing in last year’s 16u PG BCS Finals for the Easton Rockets as a 15-year-old, Michael Rothenberg was especially excited to return to Southwest Florida for this year’s edition of the event.

“This is one of the few metal bat tournaments we’ll play in this summer, and I love it,” Rothenberg, who is again here with the Rockets, said Saturday from the JetBlue Player Development Complex. “We played in this tournament last year … and I’ve always loved the BCS. There are some people on our team that like (swinging) the wood but I particularly like the metal. We used the metal during the high school season and I definitely love coming here and using these BBCOR bats.”

As Rothenberg noted, not everyone shares his excitement about leaving wood bats behind for one week out of the summer season, but regardless of how some of his teammates may feel, the metal bats treated the Easton Rockets 16u quite well three days and three pool-play games into the 2015 16u PG BCS Finals.

In three victories to start the tournament, the Rockets averaged 7½ runs per game while boasting a team batting average of .324, a team on-base percentage of .463 and a team slugging percentage of .521; 10 of their 23 hits have gone for extra-bases.

“The guys have come out and been aggressive, been disciplined; the team chemistry has been really good,” Rockets 16u head coach Brian Kaplan said Saturday. “We’ve played a lot of competitive ball this summer and playing that level of competition, win or lose, the guys get to know each other a little bit and they get to appreciate the talent they have to the left and the right of them. They’ve been playing as a team – playing well, playing hard – so it’s been good.”

This is a 16u team that has been on the go since the players finished their respective high school seasons in late May. The Rockets haven’t had too many days off since before the Memorial Day weekend in an effort to seek out the best competition they can find.

They’ve been playing up an age-group at the 17u level in non-PG tournaments throughout June, and Kaplan said those experiences are starting to payoff – even if the guys were swinging wood bats at the time. Kaplan, like one of his top prospects in Rothenberg, appreciates having the opportunity to put a metal bat back in his player’s hands for a one-week stretch.

“At the end of the day, that’s what they’re going to swing at the next level, so it’s important for them to get as comfortable with that as possible,” Kaplan said, acknowledging that the “next level” for almost all of these guys will be college baseball. “They definitely feel better putting metal in their hands; it’s a confidence booster.

“If the colleges used wood I would want them to swing wood, but college is BBCOR and it’s going to be that way at least for (the foreseeable future), so we want them to be comfortable with that kind of bat in their hands.”

The Easton Rockets organization is based in Jupiter, Fla., and quite a few of the players on this 16u team have played together for the last year or so; a couple of the more highly regarded prospects like Rothenberg played with the 16u team last year as 15-year-olds. Pieces have been added, of course, and roster spots were filled with players who the coaches felt could be big-time contributors to the program, including four from the class of 2018. Most of the guys are from the Florida Palm Beach cities of Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens and West Palm Beach; the 20 players with spots on the roster attend 15 different high schools.

“We definitely have a great group here,” Rothenberg said. “All of these guys – great arms, great bats – we like to compete together and we really love each other. We’re very upbeat, we’re always talking and we’re always energized on the bench. All of us are always supporting each other no matter who’s up or who’s on the mound and we really come together for every game.”

There is an abundance of talent on board. Rothenberg is a 6-foot-3, 200-pound 2017 switch-hitting catcher/corner-infielder from Jensen Beach, Fla., who PG ranks the No. 83 national prospect in his class; James Marinan is a 6-foot-4, 200-pound 2017 right-hander/corner-infielder from Boynton Beach, Fla., ranked No. 278 nationally; Kristofer Armstrong is a 2018 shortstop/right-hander from Jupiter who is ranked No. 38 nationally in his class.

Rothenberg went 3-for-5 (.600) with a double, three RBI and a 1.300 OPS in his first three games here. Armstrong went 5-for-8 (.625) with two doubles, two triples, seven RBI, three runs scored and a 1.931 OPS, and pitched two hitless, scoreless innings, striking out three and walking two.

2017 third baseman/outfielder Tarik Latchmansin from Royal Palm Beach, Fla. – one of eight Rockets PG ranks in the top-600 in their respective class – counted a home run and a double among his three hits in the first three games. 2017 left-hander Angelo Brunelas from Wellington, Fla., was impressive in first start of the tournament, working four two-hit, shutout innings while striking out six without a walk.

“It’s a very good group of kids and it’s a group of kids that all have the ability to play at the next level and at the same time have a lot of respect for the team atmosphere,” Kaplan said. “We came across some 2018s that are very, very talented kids. Some of them are big, physical kids that look like 2017s and some are just great 2018 ballplayers that deserve to play at the 16u level.”

The most impressive aspect of the Easton Rockets 16u roster is the size of these 16- and 15-year-old kids. Twelve of the 20 are listed at 6-foot-1 or taller – seven at either 6-3 or 6-4 – and 11 are listed at between 175- and 210-pounds, with six tipping the scales at 200-plus.

“We joke that we probably have the shortest coaching staff and the biggest team; at least the players give us a hard time about that,” Kaplan said, referring to a coaching staff that doesn’t include a member who approaches 6-feet tall. “These are some big, physical kids but they play like well-tuned, athletic players. It’s not like we’re a bunch of slow, lethargic ‘Shreks’ out there – they can play.”

Rothenberg is a special talent who in addition to his lofty national ranking, is the No. 17-ranked 2017 prospect in talent-rich Florida. He will be a junior this fall at Pine Crest High School in Fort Lauderdale, and two weeks ago participated at the Perfect Game Junior National Showcase at JetBlue Park.

“It was 180 of the best (class of 2017 and 2018) players in the country and I didn’t face a (pitcher) who threw under 88 (mph) the whole time,” Rothenberg said of the PG Jr. National. “That was probably the best baseball experience of my life so far. With all the talent that was there, it was really truly special to be a part of it.”

Rothenberg is a primary catcher – he played first base for the Rockets Saturday – and a switch-hitter, a position and a batting approach he first took on at an early age.

He decided to become a catcher when he was about 8 years old and fell in love with the position. He enjoys talking to and working with his pitchers, calling his own games when’s allowed to and being involved with every pitch of the game.

The switch-hitting came at about the same time he started catching, and eight years later he feels equally comfortable batting from both sides of the plate. In fact, he said, he can’t even imagine what it would be like facing a righty from the right side or a lefty from the left side.

The versatility and talent Rothenberg has displayed earned him the attention of many of the country’s elite NCAA Division-I programs, and he has already committed to Duke University from the Atlantic Coast Conference. That commitment in itself speaks volumes about his physical and mental attributes.

“You don’t get the opportunity to commit to a program like Duke University without being an elite level player,” Kaplan said of Rothenberg. “The big growth for him and for us has just been his leadership qualities. When you put a catcher behind the plate you hope he kind of becomes your other coach on the field and he’s really taken to that this summer.

“He’s always had the physical tools – he can swing it, he can throw it, he can receive it – but now he’s really try to represent that leadership quality, that coach on the field and he’s done a good job of that for us this summer.”

The Easton Rockets continue the pool-play portion of their 16u PG BCS Finals schedule on Sunday as they look to secure one of the 30 spots in the playoffs (the 90-team field was divided into 15 pools with six teams each and pool champions and runners-up earn playoff berths).

It is Kaplan’s hope that his Rockets 16u team uses this tournament to further establish its own identity and its own chemistry. Every summer season begins with each individual player trying to figure out where he belongs within the fabric of the team and by the time the summer ends it is hoped they are comfortable in the role they assumed.

“This team really understands what the program stands for and that’s important to us,” Kaplan said. “They really want to represent the team name and what the program’s about and they do a very good job of doing that.”

As the calendar flips from June to July, the Easton Rockets 16u’s next stop will the LakePoint Sports Complex in Emerson, Ga., where they compete in the blockbuster 16u PG WWBA National Championship July 10-17. The Rockets will once again stash the BBCOR bats and break out the wood, but that doesn’t mean they won’t look back fondly at their 16u PG BCS Finals experience.

“Perfect Game always does a great job putting on a great event – well-run, well organized, great competition – and we enjoy coming over here and playing,” Kaplan concluded.