FORT MYERS, Fla. – The heat and humidity that comes as part of the package with a late June day in Southwest Florida was already prevalent and holding its own at the jetBlue Park Player Development Complex by 7:30 Thursday morning.

Hundreds of people were gathering to take in the fourth and final day of pool-play at the Perfect Game 15u BCS National Championship and doing their best not to let the sauna-like conditions get the best of them. It is, of course, only the adults who grouse about it – the players couldn’t care less.

And so it was as the Georgia-based 5 Star National Black team gathered for their 8 a.m. game with eXposure 15u Louisville Slugger, and after a 5-0-0 start to pool-play 5 Star could relax a little bit safe in the knowledge it would be part of the 20-team playoffs which begin Friday. Head coach Phillip Hurst wasn’t taking anything for granted, however.

“The biggest thing is getting these kids ready to play every day,” he told PG shortly after most of his players had spent about a half-hour in jetBlue’s back-field batting cages. “The tough thing about the summer travel circuit is you play so many games in such a short period of time, so we’re making sure we’re taking care of bodies; making sure that we’re doing everything we can to be ready to play baseball.”

That was really one of those so far, so good, sort of comments, considering 5 Star National Black had spent the previous three days proving they belonged in any Perfect Game tournament national champion conversation.

“We always try to play as hard as we can and give 100 percent every single time we step foot on the field,” No. 81-ranked national class of 2021 prospect Ethan Campbell said Wednesday. “We set a goal and we try to meet that goal. …

“There are teams out here with great competitors and sometimes we look at those teams and you know them; they’re all familiar faces. You just have to go out play hard and try to meet your goals.”

5 Star National Black went 3-0-0 in both its two sets of pool-play, outscoring its first three opponents by a combined 22-1 and its next three by 26-8. It’s done a little bit of everything well to this point and can only hope that continues into bracket-play.

Five of the guys who got an at-bat in at least five of the six games hit .444 or better: Jackson Mayo (6-for-10, .600), Alek Mangual (5-for-9, .556), Branson Owens (7-for-14, .500), Colton Webb (4-for-8, .500) and Wyatt Campbell (4-for-9, .444).

Owens doubled three times and drove in eight runs, Mangual has a double and five RBI and Wyatt Campbell has a pair of doubles and three RBI. Additionally, Treyson Hughes is hitting .385 (5-for-13) and has driven in four runs.

“We’ve been playing really well as a team,” Baumeister said. “We’ve been using everybody … and we’ve come together and we’ve just been playing great baseball so far. If one guy isn’t able to pick up the slack, the next guy is right there to take the beating and help us advance.”

Hurst did use 11 pitchers in those first six games and all have been effective. 2020 right-hander Devan Cail was the workhorse, notching 9 innings and giving up two earned runs (1.56 ERA) on four hits with eight strikeouts and two walks.

2021 righty Wyatt Campbell has thrown 6 2/3 shutout innings, allowing but one hit while striking out four and Baumeister, also a 2021 right-hander, threw only 1 2/3 innings but struck-out four while giving up one hit and one walk.

Hurst and his staff have talked to their starting pitcher and made sure they know how important it is they give the team a quality start – in a seven-inning game, that means three or four very good innings.

“I think our strengths on this team are pitching and defense, but we’ve gotten some timely hits and different guys have stepped up,” Hurst said. “We’ve done a good job of taking care of what’s in front of us and not looking ahead to the next day or the next day.”

The most highly ranked 2021 prospects on the roster are catcher/right-hander Baumeister at No. 48 and Ethan Campbell at No. 81. Outfielder/infielder Devin Obee, a Duke commit, is ranked No. 169 but Obee did not play in any of the six pool games.

Baumeister and Brodie Chestnutt (high follow) are Florida State commits, Ethan Campbell has committed to Florida and Hughes to West Virginia. The star-power on this team is certainly considerable but it’s what 5 Star National Black does with its collective effort – all for one, one for all – that makes it a championship contender.

“The kids make my job easy,” Hurst said. “We’ve got some guys already committed to some Division I schools, and at the same time the guys that are not committed, they’re really, really good players, too; we have some dudes that are going to be really, really good players.

“Depending on how they develop – and at 15 we just don’t know – they could be high draft picks or big-time college players playing in games at the College World Series.”

Ethan Campbell was quick to add: “It definitely helps when you’re on a team and everyone wants to get to that (next) level. It creates a bond within a team.”

The key to any success that 5 Star National Black enjoys is the tried and true recipe of keeping a core group of top kids together on the same team for three or four years. Under that scenario, positive team chemistry and camaraderie amongst the players is unavoidable and indisputable, and they play together determined to never let one another down.

Quite a few of the 5 Star National Black roster spots are filled with players who were members of the 5 Star National Gold team that finished in the final four at last October’s PG WWBA Freshman World Championship played at Ballpark of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach, Fla. Top 2021s Ethan Campbell, Chestnutt, Hughes and Colton Webb earned all-tournament recognition at that event.

“We’ve had some very, very good success with these guys,” Hurst said. “It’s just a matter of trying to develop them the right way, trying to get them prepared for the next level. That’s what Perfect Game does the best is preparing these kids playing against the top competition to get ready for the next level.”

Hurst is the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at Wallace Community College in Dothan, Ala., and he said the kids he brings into Wallace who then in turn move on to D-I programs are better prepared than ever before; he credits PG tournaments like the BCS and WWBA national championships for helping with that development.

Owner Andy Burress’s 5 Star Baseball and its predecessor, Chain Baseball, have enjoyed a lot of success at the PG BCS National Championship (formerly BCS Finals) in recent years: Chain National won 15u BCS and 16u BCS championships in 2015, 5 Star National Burress won the 16u BCS title in 2017, and Five Star National Dobbs was the 17u BCS champion last year.

The members of this 15u 5 Star National Black team know the program’s history and they totally embrace it.

“The coaches bring it up every once in a while,” Ethan Campbell said. “Sometimes they bring it up (in the context) of trying to follow in the steps of the people that came through (the program) and won all the time. We want to do the same thing and try to meet that goal or even exceed that goal.”

Hurst said it is important to the program’s adult staff that these young players understand that history to the fullest.

“When they come to these (PG) national championships, they know what the teams that came before them did,” Hurst said. “There’s a lot of pressure on this group to make a deep run in the tournament because of what the teams before us have done.

“We like that pressure,” he added. “Our kids accept it and our kids want to be the next (5 Star) team to the BCS national championship, and then go to the WWBA and try to do the same thing.”

When asked about the 5 Star National Black’s collective personality, Baumeister described a dugout that is just very relaxed, where guys who become great friends over the last two or three years or so just really “get” where one another is coming from with their words and their actions.

They hang out together before and after the games, increasing the bonding experience by playing Fortnite or doing whatever else is going on in their lives right now.

“Andy Burress has done a great job of getting the right kids,” Hurst said. “Some of it is getting good baseball players but also kids that are the right fit. We’ve done a great job of having very, very good team chemistry in the dugout – joking, having a good time – and it’s fun for me, coming off of a college season, to come here with a bunch of 15-year-olds, and they’re in there having fun.”

The 5 Star National Blacks did enough winning and did so convincingly enough to earn one of the top-four seeds in the 20-team playoffs, which means it won’t play a first-round game and will face one of the seven teams seeded Nos. 13 through 20.

A matchup with top prospect-laden clubs like Georgia-based Team Elite 15u Prime, Florida-based Elite Squad 15u National and Florida-based X Team 2021 – a combined 17-0-1 here this week – somewhere down the road. How exactly does one spell “BRING IT ON.”

“We all know that to win these tournaments you’re going to match up with them eventually,” Hurst said. “Whenever our games are over, our guys are going over to see what those (teams) are doing and keeping up with them because that’s who we want to play. … Those are the teams that we want to play because that’s how you evaluate where you’re going as a program.”

And what do the top two prospects in 5 Star National program think about the whole thing?

“We’ve been looking forward to this tournament all year long and we know that it’s really good competition, as it always is at Perfect Game events,” Baumeister said. “We’re really ready for the competition and looking forward to great games from here on out.”

Added Campbell: “It can be (a grind) but you push through it. You’ve got to work with it and it only makes you better; it’s only preparing you for the future.”

Heat and humidity be damned …