FORT MYERS, Fla. – One outstanding pitching performance after another over the last four days led Next Level Baseball 18u to the championship game at the 2nd annual 18u Perfect Game Florida State Championship. With that out there, it should come as no surprise to anyone to learn another great outing led it to the title.
2016 left-hander Matt Cronin was wicked and wily on Tuesday, limiting Tornadoes Baseball to one run on one hit while striking out 12 and walking but two in NLB 18u’s 5-1 victory over the Tornadoes in the 18u PGFSC championship game played at sauna-like Terry Park Stadium.
The victory capped a four-day run during which Tallahassee-based NLB 18u beat all six of its opponents by a combined count of 40-4 with three of those opposing team’s runs scored in Tuesday’s semifinal and championship games.
“I think the big thing coming into this was we knew we had really good pitching,” NLB 18u head coach Justin Bruce said after watching his players untangle themselves from a celebratory dog-pile in the middle of the stadium’s infield. “… I thought we did a really good job of setting our pitching up and we had really good arms here at the end that were able to win it for us. This is really just a good group of guys.”
The championship game served as a microcosm of Next Level 18u’s entire tournament. Cronin trotted out to the mound and immediately produced an 89 mph fastball that would ultimately sit at 87-89 and top-off at 91 mph; he was also especially effective with his 75 mph curveball and 77 mph changeup as the day went on.
NLB 18u gave Cronin all the run support he would need by scoring two in the bottom of the first inning. The first was pushed across by an RBI single from Alec Aleywine, who then scored the second run on a fielder’s choice groundout from Bo Seccombe. NLB 18u added a single run in the bottom of the fourth on an RBI single from Shelby Savell and completed its scoring with a two-run double off the bat of Corey Armstrong in the bottom of the fifth.
The runs were necessary and appreciated but this ballgame belonged to Cronin from start to finish. He is a 6-foot-2, 185-pound University of Arkansas signee from Navarre, Fla., ranked 185th nationally, and his championship game efforts earned him the tournament’s Most Valuable Pitcher Award.
“I wanted to come in and just get as many outs as I could for my team. I did that for about six innings and we came out with a championship,” Cronin said, adding that he was unaffected by the high heat (90 degrees) and humidity (90 percent). “Warming up I felt a little tightness in my shoulder but it loosened up really quick during the game; it just felt pretty good.
“I actually flew in from Vegas yesterday and it was 111 out there and it was dry heat and it was terrible. I’m glad to be back in the humidity.”
Bruce used nine pitchers over the last four days and they combined to go 6-0 and allow only three earned runs in 39 innings pitched (0.54 ERA); they allowed 24 hits while striking out 47 and walking 18. One of the performances nearly as grand as the one Cronin turned in Tuesday came from 2016 left-hander Zach Barker, who threw a complete-game, two-hit shutout with eight strikeouts and three walks during pool-play.
Another somewhat curious pitching performance came from Aleywine, a 6-foot-2, 250-pound 2016 first baseman/right-hander from Panama City who has signed with his hometown Gulf Coast Community College. He made one appearance and somehow managed to not allow a run despite giving up three hits and walking three; he also managed to record all nine of his outs via the strikeout.
But it wasn’t Aleywine’s pitching that earned him the event’s Most Valuable Player Award. In six games, he went 6-for-18 (.333) with two doubles, a triple, nine RBI and five runs scored, with three of those hits, two of those RBI and three of those runs coming in the two games Tuesday.
“It was a great experience. We faced a lot of great competition and I think it brought us closer together as a team,” Aleywine said of the championship run. “We just grinded through, didn’t lose a single game, gave up very few runs and we just battled.”
And on one important assessment of his team’s play, Aleywine was in complete agreement with his head coach: “I think our pitching and defense set us apart really well, and the fact that we could score runs every game. We had solid pitching and solid defense and we just didn’t give up much.”
At least two other NLB 18u 2016 hitters enjoyed fine tournaments at the plate. Seccombe, a Santa Fe College signee from Tallahassee, was 5-for-17 (.294) with a home run, triple, double, five RBI and a runs scored. Gulf Coast CC signee JT Duncan from Panama City singled eight times in 17 at-bats (.471), drove in three runs and scored a team-high seven.
Tornadoes Baseball (5-1-0) out of Plantation, Fla., won three of its of five games leading up to the championship game by one-run, and while it hit .301 as a team, 39 of its 42 hits were singles with the other three being doubles.
2017 outfielder Weylin Cleri from Davie – who got the Tornadoes’ only hit and scored their only run in the championship game – took that effort to the greatest length by hitting .579 (11-for-19) with all 11 hits being singles; he had four RBI, scored seven runs and stole three bases from his spot at the top of the batting order.
NLB 18u pushed across five runs in the top of the first inning and made it stand in a 5-2 victory over FTB Platinum out of Orlando in one of Tuesday morning’s semifinal games at Terry Park. Aleywine and Armstrong had RBI singles, Michael Sandle picked up an RBI with a bases loaded walk and Thomas Brack stole home as part of that five-run first.
2017 left-hander Devin Hemenway held FTB Platinum (4-1-0) in check, scattering six hits over six innings of work and allowing the two runs – both in the top of the sixth – while striking out six and walking two. Alejandro Guerrero doubled, singled and drove in a run and Chris Tidwell had a pair of base-hits an RBI to account for four of Platinum’s six hits and both of its runs.
The Tornadoes plated four runs in the top of the first and an insurance run in the third and then withstood a Florida Stealth 17u Red comeback in a 5-4 victory in the morning’s other semifinal at Terry Park. David Flores and Christian Coleman were among the six Tornadoes to collect singles in the win and they both drove in two runs.
Florida Stealth 17u Red (4-1-0) from Delray Beach scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the first and two more in the bottom of the sixth to make things interesting. Chase Ashby tripled, singled drove in a run and scored two others and Braxton Zivic doubled and singled and scored two runs to lead 17u Red.
At the end of the day – and the end of the tournament – it was the lively young arms wearing Next Level Baseball 18u jerseys that prevailed. It was a team that did everything that needed to be done in order to take home a championship trophy.”
“Pitching set us apart and I think we had some really good at-bats,” Bruce said. “We’re a senior-driven team and there’s a lot of leadership on this team with a lot of guys who have played together. We had some big hits and some game-defining moments, and it was just a good tournament for our guys.”
2016 18u PG Florida State Championship runner-up: Tornadoes Baseball
2016 18u PG Florida State Championship MVP: Alec Aleywine
2016 18u PG Florida State Championship MV-Pitcher: Matt Cronin
