The National High School Invitational brings 16 high school teams from across the country into the USA Baseball Complex in Cary, North Carolina, for four days of competition. The format essentially starts with a playoff round of 16, with first game losers going straight to the consolation round. So there are strong reasons for teams to throw their best arms immediately at the beginning of the event.
PG All-American Hans Crouse (Dana Hills HS, Calif.) was arguably the standout of the first two days, leading the Dana Hills team to a hard fought 4-3 win over Cullman (Ala.) High school and fellow All-American Jacob Heatherly. Crouse struck out nine hitters over five plus innings and led with his emotion and high energy actions as well as with his arm. His stuff was outstanding, with his fastball in the 93-96 mph range for the first few innings before moving down a notch and his upper-70s curveball showing tight spin and sharp bite across the strike zone.
Heatherly showed stuff over the first two innings that has been consistent with his performances throughout the spring, sitting 91-94 mph with his fastball, although he had some command issues on the inside half of the plate to righthanded hitters, plunking four of them during his five innings. The lefthander hit a wall in the third inning though, dropping to 88-90 with less power on his mid-70s curveball. Ironically, Heatherly was very impressive with the bat, roping a couple of hard line drive singles off of Crouse to lead the Cullman offense.
Another almost equally impressive pitching performance was turned in by Trinity Christian (Fla.) High School's A.J. Labas. The strong 6-foot-3, 215-pound North Florida signee threw a complete game with no walks and 13 strikeouts against Hough (N.C.) High School, with many strikeouts coming on an outstanding changeup that he would even triple up on at times. Labas worked in the 88-92 mph range with his fastball, so hitters had to gear up for velocity and couldn't handle the lively 80 mph off-speed pitch. Labas also filled up the zone with an upper-70s slurve, giving him three solid to better offerings to work with.
Huntington Beach (Calif.) first baseman and lefthanded pitcher Nick Pratto has been getting huge scouting attention this spring, with plenty of first round talk and frequent comparisons to Louisville's Brandon McKay. Most of that attention has been focused on Pratto's bat, which has been quiet for two days. But Pratto was very impressive on the mound, throwing 9 2/3 innings in a 10-inning 3-1 loss to Winder-Barrow (Ga.) High School. Pratto needed only 97 pitches, working at 88-90 with an outstanding changeup, solid curveball and obviously superior command.
American Heritage (Fla.) High School is loaded with talent, especially in PG All-American shortstop Mark Vientos. Vientos looks even longer and leaner than he did last summer but the 17-year old still has the actions and bat speed on the field. He had four hits in American Heritage's first game, including a double over the right fielder's head and a couple of hard line drive singles to left field. He looks like he's seeing the ball very well and was both patient in his pitch selection and aggressive in his swings across two games.
2018 third baseman Cory Acton has also been impressive for American Heritage, also picking up four hits in the first game. The lefthanded hitter has a very aggressive approach at the plate, standing as close as possible to the plate as if daring the pitcher to come inside. He has quick hands and some serious barrel whip in his bat and can get around on that pitch, though. And even though Acton is a good 3-4 inches shorter than Vientos and his powerful teammate, 2018 first baseman Triston Casas, Acton's batting practice shots consistently had more carry on them.
Righthander Christian Santana pitched a complete game for American Heritage in that first game, working in the 88-92 mph range and flashing quality to both his curveball and changeup. The FIU signee has been up to 95 mph at PG events and has the body and fluid arm action to project that kind of consistent velocity on his fastball. He'll be an interesting decision for scouts come this June.
Righthanded pitcher and third baseman Joe Perez (Archbishop McCarthy (Fla.) HS) has been getting lots of scouting attention early this spring as he converts to a primary pitcher, with reports of him touching 97-98 earlier in the spring. Perez didn't have his top shelf stuff on Wednesday, yo-yoing between 88 and 94 mph and touching 95 a few times early. He showed much better command of his curveball than his fastball throughout the outing and went to it frequently and effectively.
Perez's teammate, PG All-American first baseman Alex Toral, is pitched to in a similar manner as was during the summer circuit, meaning opposing pitchers pitch him backwards and avoid fastballs to the middle of the plate at all costs. Toral had a patient approach in the at-bats this scout saw and lined hard contact to all fields when not walking.
The South Hills (Calif) High School team has been very impressive in two wins, playing very strong fundamental baseball behind shortstop Jacob Amaya and getting impressive pitching performances from a pair of two-way standouts, lefthanded pitcher and outfielder Karlos Morales and 2018 shortstop and righthanded pitcher Brandon Dieter. Amaya is a Cal State Fullerton signee while Morales has signed with Long Beach State and Dieter is committed to Stanford.
Another impressive underclassman has been 2018 shortstop Tate Kolwyck of Arlington (Tenn.) High School. Kolwyck is a strongly build 6-foot, 190-pound righthanded hitting shortstop with good speed and lots of body life. His present strength gives him plenty of bat speed and has resulted in a couple of hard hit doubles down the right field line, including one off a low-90s fastball from Joe Perez.
This scout wasn't able to catch any of the game, with two other contests being played at the same time, but there was plenty of scout talk about Canterbury (Fla.) School righthanded pitcher Sam Keating, a Clemson signee, after Canturbury's first game. Keating worked in the 88-92 mph range and threw both a curveball and a slider with hard spin and good feel. Keating has reportedly been up to 94 mph this spring and is a projectable 6-foot-3 athlete who is also a very good outfielder and hitter when not on the mound.