FORT MYERS, Fla. – Only three days into what they hope stretches into a seven-day stay at the 17u Perfect Game BCS Finals, the Freehold, N.J.-based Jersey Mudcats had beaten two teams from Florida – including one that calls Fort Myers home – earned a tie with a team from Texas when they didn’t play particularly well and found a spot all by themselves on top of their pool’s standings.

These Mudcats, far from being the bottom-feeders their nickname suggests, have been patient and courteous while overcoming much of the adversity that comes along with competing for PG national championship in the middle of a Southwest Florida summer.

Most importantly, they have shown they deserve to be taken seriously at this major 102-team Perfect Game event. Now, if they could just do something about the weather. Mudcats’ head coach Tim Cavanaugh told PG his team of Jersey boys with a couple of New Yorkers tossed into the mix were struggling with the region’s intense summertime heat and humidity, which often reaches near-suffocating levels by mid-morning each day.

“We’re lined-up well with our pitching; our pitchers have been doing really well,” Cavanaugh said early Thursday afternoon from one of the backfields at the CenturyLink Sports Complex, speaking of his team’s 2-0-1 start to pool-play. “The way I planned the pitchers to go, they’ve stayed on track, and that’s what’s kept us in good shape. Plus, we’re hitting well.

“But we’re not used to this heat and it’s getting to them a little,” he continued. “Other than that they’re playing really well and everything’s going as planned; they’re playing good baseball. They’re better than the way they’re playing right now but they’re playing to the level they should be playing in order to win. Other that little hiccup (the tie on Wednesday), they’re hitting on all cylinders right now.”

The Mudcats’ schedule had allowed them to avoid any lightning and rain delays the first three days, but that changed Thursday when their game with Georgia-based Chain Select-Savannah was stopped by both. The ‘Cats’ 2017 right-hander Jared Vega was pitching a seven-strikeout no-hitter through five innings and Jersey led 2-0 when the game was halted.

The weather aside, things really have been going quite nicely for the Jersey Mudcats at the 17u PG BCS Finals. They opened play Monday with a 12-0 victory over the Fort Myers-based Gulf Coast Fury 17u and followed that up Tuesday with a 6-4 win against the Scorpions West Purple 2017 from up the road in Tampa. They sputtered a bit on Wednesday when they settled for 1-1 tie with BLBA Shofner 17u out of Waco, Texas, but they were the only team in their six-team pool that hadn’t lost at least once.

“I feel like we’ve clicked as a team on the field and everything is rolling right now at the right time,” standout 2017 shortstop Joey Castellanos from Nutley, N.J. said Thursday. “We’ve been getting hits when we need them, and we’ve struggled with that a little bit in the past. So far, in these last few games, we’ve gotten them when we needed them, except yesterday when we tied. But we’re definitely clicking and every day we’re getting better as a team.”

This Jersey Mudcats’ roster is top-heavy with class of 2017 prospects with a nice sprinkling of 2016s included for good measure. That makes it a veteran group, the core of which has been playing together since they were 8 or 9 years old, according to Cavanaugh. The players come from all over New Jersey – north-south, east-west – and twins Bryan and Cristian Morales call Spring Valley, N.Y., home.

Cavanaugh said that when this group of players was at the 13u level, somebody did rankings of the top age-group teams in New Jersey and the Mudcats were ranked near the very top. Other young players from across the state took notice of those rankings and wanted to be a part of something special while getting the opportunity to travel to some of the higher profile PG tournaments as part of the deal. They started streaming into the Jersey Mudcats’ program from all corners of the Garden State.

“We don’t have a lot of practice time, it’s just basically you come to the tournaments and play,” Cavanaugh said. “That’s the only downside of having kids spread out so much is that we don’t have the practice time that we would like to have.”

The Mudcats hit .290 (20-for-69) as a team in their first three games here, counting 17 singles and three doubles among their 20 hits. 2017 Makhi Booker was 2-for-4 with three RBI and three runs scored, and also pitched 4 1/3 innings of one-hit, no-earned runs ball with nine strikeouts and no walks in Wednesday’s tie. 2016 Carlos Perez was 3-for-7 (.429) with a double and three runs scored and 2016 Justin Ramos was 4-for-10 (.400) with four singles, four RBI and a run scored.

Castellanos, ranked as a national top-1,000 prospect by Perfect Game, went just 2-for-10 with a single, double and two runs scored in the Mudcats’ first three games but he has proven in the past he possesses some pretty special hitting tools.

The newspaper The Record out of Bergen County, N.J., named Castellanos its New Jersey Player of the Year this spring after his tremendous junior season at St. Mary High School in Rutherford, N.J. Castellanos hit .552 (53-for-96) with nine doubles, four triples and two home runs, and posted a .606 on-base percentage for the Gaels; he drove in 43 runs and scored 37. According to The Record, he hit safely in 25 of the Gaels’ 30 games and had 17 multi-hit games.

“He’s the hardest working kid I’ve ever seen,” St. Mary head coach Dennis Hulse told The Record. “His offseason training not only helped him at the plate, but defensively (as well). His quickness gave him the range he needs to be a Division I shortstop. The difference this year is how quick and strong he became.”

Some of the other top guys on the Mudcats’ roster include 2017 right-hander Rich Racobaldo, another top-1,000 prospect who has committed to St. John’s University. Right-hander Gregory Dahl and first baseman Cameron Cavanaugh, both 2017s, are highly regarded, as is 2016 third baseman Cristian Morales.

“I wouldn’t want to take the field with any other group of boys,” Castellanos said. “Everybody’s close, we’re all best friends, and taking the field with them we all know we have each other’s backs and that’s a benefit on the field and helps with our success. …

“We like to stay loose and have fun,” he continued. “When we get tight, that’s when we make mistakes. We’re definitely a loose group and we’re trying to have fun all the time, remembering that it’s still a game at the end of the day.”

The Jersey Mudcats wouldn’t be on the Southwest Florida Gulf Coast this week if Coach Cavanaugh didn’t feel like they belonged here, if he wasn’t 100 percent sure they could be competitive. They have won their share of tournaments back home in New Jersey and he knows they provide a test for any team that lines up across from them at the 17u PG BCS Finals.

“These guys just love coming down here,” Cavanaugh said. “I try to teach them that it doesn’t matter where you’re at, there’s somebody watching you at all times. So when you get out of your car, walk like a baseball player, act like a baseball player, don’t come out just dragging your bag; scouts look at that, they look at everything. We’ve got a good group here, it’s just a matter of keeping them focused.”

When that happens, the Mudcats can beat Florida teams playing in their own backyards and they can prove they’ll be a factor when bracket-play officially starts at some point late Friday afternoon. Now, if they could only beat the weather …

“It’s way different than Jersey ball; it’s just a different experience,” Castellanos said of playing baseball in Southwest Florida in the summertime. Not that he was complaining about anything, of course. “It’s just an awesome experience all the way around.”