FORT MYERS, Fla. – Day 3 at the Perfect Game WWBA Underclass World Championship was barely underway at mid-morning Saturday, but the guys wearing the uniforms of the highly regarded Florida Burn 2017 Pennant already knew this wasn’t just another day at the office – or, in this case, another day at Terry Park.
Saturday was moving day at the PG WWBA Underclass World. By the end of the very long day, 62 of the 246 teams that started play at the tournament either Thursday or Friday would be moving on to Sunday’s playoffs, with the top-two seeds receiving byes directly into the second-round of six-tier bracket-play. The other 184 would soon be moving out of their hotel rooms and heading home.
The Sarasota-based Florida Burn 2017 Pennant won their pool-play-opener Friday with a 5-0 shutout of CageRat Baseball from Noblesville, Ind. They then needed to replicate that result against, first, Mid-Atlantic Rookies Baseball from Gettysburg, Pa., and then Team DeMarini out of Lemont, Ill., in order to win the pool championship and play meaningful games on Sunday.
Burn 2017 Pennant head coach Mark Guthrie, a former long-time big-league pitcher, handed the ball to 2017 right-hander Sam Keating, a Clemson commit from Fort Myers ranked No. 199 nationally in his class. Keating really did try to look at it as another day at the office as he described his mindset not only heading into the important start against Mid- Atlantic but also the mindset his teammates had coming into this PG national championship tournament.
“For this game, I just want to throw strikes and get ahead of hitters; that’s what I do best and that’s what I’ve done best my whole life,” Keating told PG Saturday morning. “For this tournament, our first goal is to win our pool, and I think we have a good chance today. We feel good and we have some good players on this team, so we’re ready to go.”
Both Keating and his teammates did what they had to do in clearing the Rookies Baseball hurdle, with Keating throwing four no-hit, shutout innings with seven strikeouts and one walk in the Burn 2017 Pennant’s second straight 5-0 victory.
2018 left-hander Douglas Mikhazy, an Ole Miss recruit from Ocoee, Fla., who is ranked No. 58 in his class, threw three one-hit, shutout innings with four strikeouts and without a walk. The performances put the Burn 2017 Pennant in a very good place for the rest of the day and, more than likely, the rest of the tournament.
“This is one of the biggest tournaments out here -- all the top teams are here – and we just want to make a bigger name for ourselves than we already have,” 2017 shortstop/outfielder and two-year Florida Burn member Shane Shifflett said Saturday. “You want to play at the top level and against the best teams, so this is what you have to do.”
Later Saturday night, 2017 left-hander Colton Gordon-Zimring and 2019 lefty Nolan Hudi combined on a four-inning no-hitter in a 12-0 win over Team DeMarini, which secured the pool championship for the Burn 2017 Pennant.
By outscoring their three pool-play opponents by a combined 22-0, the Florida Burn 2017 Pennant earned the playoffs No. 1 seed and received a first-round playoff bye. Elite Baseball Training Chicago 2017 outscored its three pool opponents by a combined 18-0 to earn the No. 2 seed and the other first-round bye.
“We’ve always tried to pride ourselves on just focusing on winning the games,” Guthrie said. “We do come out here to win – not at all costs, obviously – and to learn how to play the game within that scope, and the rest of it takes care of itself. I think kids play closer to their ceiling when they do it that way, and to me that’s just the nature of baseball.”
There were four Florida Burn teams here this weekend, with the Burn 2017 Pennant joined by Burn 2017 East, Burn 2018 and Burn 2018 Pennant. The Burn 2018 Pennant (3-0-0) also won their pool and also advanced to Sunday’s playoffs.
Guthrie has been the driving force behind building the Florida Burn organization into one of the country’s best since he first began fielding a couple of underclass teams in 2012; the top club, Florida Burn Orange, featured his son, top shortstop prospect Dalton Guthrie. The Orange beat the Orlando Scorpions in the championship game at the 2012 PG WWBA Underclass World Championship, and the tournament immediately became one of Mark Guthrie’s favorites.
“The exposure that all these underclass kids get at this event is probably the best there is,” Guthrie said. “It rivals the WWBA in Atlanta, and it’s nice for us that’s it’s local and that we have this opportunity.”
Most of the guys on this 2017 Pennant roster have been with the Burn organization for at least a year or two, or since they began their high school careers. The roster stays true to the Burn’s roots, with a fair share of players from the Sarasota, Venice and Tampa areas, but it has branched south to where there are now five rosters spots filled with players from the Southwest Florida communities of Fort Myers, Cape Coral and Estero; every player is from Florida.
“It’s not really by plan, and we do have some kids from other areas, but I think it just kind of spreads word of mouth,” Guthrie said. “Kids talk and then friends join, and they’re able to come to tryout and kind of see what we’re all about; usually that works pretty well for us.”
2017 right-hander Cooper Swanson, a Vanderbilt commit from Fort Myers ranked No. 141 nationally, got the ball rolling for the Burn 2017 Pennant on Friday by throwing four innings of one-hit, shutout ball with seven strikeouts and five walks while facing the CageRats. The rest of the staff didn’t misfire at all throughout the duration of pool-play.
The top-ranked prospect on the roster is 2017 left-hander Jordan Butler, a Florida recruit from Tampa ranked No. 17 who yet to pitch. The other top 2017s are middle-infielder Brady McConnel from Merrit Island (ranked No. 85, a Florida commit); Shifflett from Venice (No. 92, Florida); middle-infielder Jose Cicarello from Tampa (No. 126, Florida), Swanson and Keating. Top 2018s include catcher Mateu Nelson from Largo (No. 36, Florida State) and Nikhazy.
These are prospects that not only feed off of one another but also gain energy from the coaching staff, which includes Venice Senior High School head coach Craig Faulkner.
“There is great coaching here and they’ve taught me a lot of things and they’ve gotten me through a lot of things in my life,” Shifflett said. “My high school coach (Faulkner) helps with one of the other teams, and Coach Guthrie use to coach at my high school and he’s a great coach. He teaches us the right way to play the game.”
Keating, who started playing with the Burn at the beginning of the summer, added: “I love Coach Guthrie and all the other coaches. My teammates are awesome, and it’s just a great environment; we have fun and we win a lot of games. Our team chemistry is the main reason we’re so good. We know each other and we have fun, and that’s the main reason we win a lot of games.”
Guthrie said he is extremely proud of the group of young men who were on the original Florida Burn Orange underclass team in 2012 that helped to establish the organization’s impeccable reputation and produce the positive image most people have of the kind of fundamentally solid player the program produces. “What I’m most proud of is that most of those kids went out and started at Division I schools their freshman years, and that’s not easy to do,” he said.
Zach Spivey and Kyle Gilbert contributed immediately at Florida Gulf Coast, Hunter Lee did well at High Point and Brandon Elmy did some good things at Furman. The two biggest successes, however, were Dalton Guthrie and Michael Rivera at the University of Florida.
The former Venice Senior High School teammates and classmates helped the fledgling Florida Burn organization win seven Perfect Game tournament championships between 2012 and 2014, and then last spring helped then the Florida Gators reach the College World Series in Omaha. Both were named to the Southeastern Conference All-Freshmen Team and both were named Louisville Slugger Freshmen All-Americans.
“The fact that all those guys were able to understand what they were walking into is important to us,” Guthrie said. “Sometimes we battle with some of these guys here and it’s a tough lesson to learn just because they haven’t been through it. We want to make sure they’re prepared and that it’s not the end of the world once you commit.”
With his commitment to Florida Gators head coach Kevin O’Sullivan on the record, Shifflett hopes to accomplish many of the same things in the spring of 2018 that Dalton Guthrie and Rivera accomplished in Gainesville this past spring.
“Dalton Guthrie and Michael Rivera are great ballplayers, and they even went to my high school and everything,” Shifflett said, the excitement evident in his voice. “They played the game right and that’s why they’re at the University of Florida right now and playing great.”
There will be 30 first-round, 16 second-round and eight third-round playoff games played Sunday at Terry Park, the JetBlue Player Development Complex, the CenturyLink Sports Complex and the Player Development 5-Plex in Fort Myers on Sunday. The quarterfinals and semifinals will be played Monday at JetBlue with the championship game tentatively scheduled for 1 p.m. at Hammond Stadium at CenturyLink.
Mark Guthrie talked at length about how important it was that his athletes who have already committed to colleges turn out to play at the PG WWBA Under World. He said the Florida Burn staff tries to make sure the committed players understand they continued to be watched and evaluated and that their games have to continue to progress. Shifflett did not need to be convinced.
“I like coming out and seeing the top pitchers and just seeing what we actually can do (as a team),” he said. “It’s got to be a team effort to win this --- you can’t do it with just one player – so it’s pretty much about every single player out here.
“I didn’t want to leave my guys under the bus and make them play by themselves,” he concluded. “I want to win this tournament and hopefully by me being here will help us to win it; my goal is to win this tournament.”