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Tournaments  | Story | 12/9/2020

Cole Young stays on top of his game

Jeff Dahn
Photo: Cole Young (Perfect Game

It’s taken equal amounts of desire, dedication, commitment and hard work for standout Pennsylvania shortstop Cole Young to reach the top of the ladder among his peers from the national prep class of 2022.

A 17-year-old junior at North Allegheny Senior High School in his hometown of Wexford, Pa., in Pittsburgh’s North Hills, Young’s work ethic, his athleticism, his natural abilities and his passion for the game has allowed him to already accomplish so much with so much more yet to come.



“It has been exciting but it has been gradual,” Cole’s dad, Rick Young, told PG when asked to describe what it’s been like watching his son climb into the top-10 of Perfect Game’s national class of 2022 prospect rankings.

“I’ve never coached him but I’m always there to pitch balls to him or do whatever he wants,” Rick added. “Cole has always wanted to get outside and play so I kind of saw this coming from an early age. He just wanted to spend time with it and excel at it because he had fun.”

That’s actually a pretty common storyline written by most young top prospects, including outfielder Elijah Green from Windermere, Fla., right-hander Dylan Lesko from Buford, Ga., and outfielder Andruw Jones out of Suwanee, Ga., the elite performers ranked Nos. 1-3 nationally in the 2022 class; those three joined Young at the 2018 PG 14u Select Baseball Festival in Fort Myers, Fla.

Cole Young, a Duke commit ranked the No. 8 overall prospect in the class (No. 3 SS), fits right in at the top of the rankings. He’s a left-handed hitter with 6.88-second speed in the 60 who can throw 90 mph across the infield and who has produced a 93 mph exit velo off the bat.

While Rick Young described his son’s progress as “gradual” Cole Young actually burst upon the national youth baseball scene in pretty dramatic fashion as a 10-year-old in 2014. That was when he was his age-division national champion at the MLB Pitch, Hit & Run competition held in conjunction with the MLB All-Star Game at Target Field in Minneapolis.

“It was really fun,” Cole told TRIBLIVE.COM in 2014. “The atmosphere was cool and it was exciting.”

It was also just the beginning of an impressive ascension through the ranks of youth baseball for the kid from the north Pittsburgh suburbs who discovered he had a penchant for the game while following around his brother, Blake, who is five years older.

Blake Young, a recent Penn State graduate who is five years older than Cole and who, like Rick, didn’t play baseball beyond high school. Blake probably didn’t give it a second thought as an elementary student at the time, but he was having a big impact on his younger brother.

Cole would tag along with the older boys and started getting a feel for the game while doing something just about every kid living in suburban neighborhoods does during the summer.

“When I was like 4 years old, I’d always play Wiffle ball with my brother,” Cole told PG during a recent telephone conversation when asked about how he got started in baseball and how he first came to perfect his fluid left-handed stroke. “I kind of kept that same swing that I had during those Wiffle ball days. I made a few adjustments but for the most part it’s pretty much been the same swing.”

It’s a swing that has served him well, as has his ability to field the shortstop position as well as anyone in his class. Young has participated in 24 PG events since the fall of 2016 and has been named all-tournament 12 times – five while playing with US Elite Baseball in 2017-18 and seven while playing with Canes Baseball in 2018-20.

“Cole loves Perfect Game; Perfect Game tournaments are what he’s about,” his mom, Jo Anne, told PG during another recent telephone conversation. “Even when he was with US Elite he wanted to just go to the Perfect Game when he was younger because that’s just where he really felt he could compete.”

Said Cole: “It started with T-ball and as I made my way up it just got more fun because of the competition. It’s such a big jump from 12u to 17u, obviously, but I love the competition. I love getting better, I love seeing other people getting better; it makes me want to work harder. So that’s what I really like about the game.”

Rick and Jo Anne Young, who are divorced but are very much equal partners in Cole’s upbringing, got their son involved with travel ball when he was 12 years old, playing with the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based US Elite program. He made his PG debut at the 2016 13u Super25 Mid-Atlantic Fall Super Qualifier with US Elite Baseball to get the ball rolling.

Travel ball was more of a regional experience to begin with but that changed when Cole was a member of the US Elite team that played at the 2017 PG 13u World Series in Emerson, Ga. He jumped into the spotlight later that summer when he was named to the all-tournament team at the PG WWBA Freshman World Championship while playing up with the US Elite 2021’s.

“Thank God that we started with US Elite to get the exposure for the Canes to see Cole’s talent and bring it to a different level; he needed to be at that level,” Jo Anne said. “As an organization, I just like the parents; the coaches. The coaches he had this summer he loved.”

The association with the Canes National has been a very rewarding one for Cole Young. Playing alongside other top 2022s like left-hander Tristan Smith (No. 9, uncommitted), Jackson Ferris (No. 15, Ole Miss), outfielder Paxton Kling (No. 17, LSU), outfielder Roman Anthony (No. 32, Ole Miss), right-hander Kassius Thomas (No. 40, Duke) and outfielder/right-hander Nathan Fink (No. 59, Virginia) and a host of others, Young has been a part of three PG WWBA championship teams.

Those include back-to-back titles at the WWBA 15u and 16u National Championships in 2019 and 2020 respectively; Young was named the tournament MV Player at both of those PG national championship tournaments.

“The biggest thing about the Canes is their coaches. They know so much about the game of baseball and that has benefitted me a lot over the past two years,” he said. “And the players, too; I learned so much from everyone else on the team. This summer I can recall so many instances where I picked up so many little tips from other players on the team. …

“Being around all those great players just makes you want to win and that’s the mentality that I have,” he added. “If I’m going to be around these people I want to win and I want to win championships.”

Young wouldn’t single-out any of the Canes coaches because he’s worked with so many over the last two years and he was afraid he’d leave someone out; John Batchelor and Brian Hucks have been Cole's head coaches at the 15u and 16u levels.

His dad noted that when Cole first joined the Canes he was a little bit hesitant simply because his teammates were new and they were all very talented. Cole began getting more and more acclimated to his surroundings with each passing tournament and his confidence grew as a result of being around other players who exuded their own confidence and a certain championship mentality.

During this crazy summer and fall of 2020, Rick wasn’t able to make it to any of Cole’s PG events this year but Jo Anne picked-up the slack and attended every one of them. She would often take video of Cole hitting and was more than happy to share them with Rick back home.

And Cole enjoyed a terrific 2020 tournament campaign once it got up and running. He hit .418 (28-for-67) with eight doubles, a triple, three home runs, 23 runs and 26 RBI in 26 games; he also stole nine bases, walked 18 times and posted a .552 OBP. In other words, he was able to put a smile on his mom’s face just about every time out.

Jo Anne Young has been able to form friendships with the moms of other Canes players, and since she was able to take the summer off and attend all of the events, she got to spend a lot of time with them over a two-month run. It also gave her the opportunity to watch Cole perform in a competitive environment in which he thrives.

“Perfect Game just brings all those players together as they’re developing and Cole has so much fun seeing everyone,” she said. “It’s such a blessing to have Perfect Game and it’s such an opportunity for every kid to be able to develop relationships; that’s what’s important.”

Cole Young has been a part of the PG showcase circuit, as well, earning Top Prospect List recognition at the 2018 PG 14u National in Fort Myers, Fla., the 2020 PG Great Lakes Indoor in Rossford, Ohio, and at the 2020 PG Junior National in Hoover, Ala.

Following his performance at the 14u National, Young received an invitation to the PG 14u Select Baseball Festival back in Fort Myers as one of the top 44 age-eligible prospects in the country at the time.

Up until the 14u National and 14u Select Fest experiences, Young really hadn’t had much of an opportunity to see how he stacked up against his age-group peers, the 2014 MLB Pitch, Hit & Run competition aside.

When he saw the way top guys like Green, Lesko, Jones, Smith and Termarr Johnson applied themselves and went about their business, he realized he still had a lot of work to do; he saw where he was in that moment and he wasn’t satisfied.

“It’s always cool watching everyone else’s routine before they perform,” Cole said. “It’s really cool performing before all those scouts and all those good players. … I feel like it prepares you for the future, as well. It’s always fun playing in front of a lot of people like at the PG Select; I love it.”

Young played basketball through his ninth-grade year before deciding to focus only on baseball; it was a difficult decision because he really enjoyed basketball. He also feels like playing basketball helped with his lateral movement and agility, refinements he applied to his work defensively at the shortstop position.

A straight-A student at North Allegheny Senior, Young committed to head coach Chris Pollard and the Duke Blue Devils in November 2018 early in his freshman year of high school. He is part of a 2022 class that also includes, so far anyway, No. 40 California right-hander Kassius Thomas (his teammate with the Canes National) and No. 60 California left-hander Oliver Santos along with nine other prospects ranked in PG’s top-500.

There were many elements that factored into his decision to choose Duke over other prominent suitors but there was no denying what stood out most:

“It started with the coaching staff, and once I got to meet (the staff) I just loved the program,” Cole said. “The coaching staff and the academics were the two biggest things, and then there’s location, the weather and the campus. … And the program is definitely turning upwards right now, for sure.”

It has been an interesting journey to date for the toolsy kid from Pittsburgh’s North Hills who first made hometown headlines by becoming his age-group national champion at the 2014 MLB Pitch, Hit & Run competition as a 10-year-old.

“At the Select Fest, it wasn’t like I felt, wow, he made it here; I always knew his talent,” Jo Anne said. “Now, when he won that Pitch, Hit & Run, that was like ‘Wow!’”

While acknowledging the time and effort that her son has put in to reach this point, Jo Anne Young also firmly believes Cole has been blessed with a natural gift for the game. He was there with his brother Blake at an early age, goofing around on the sidelines while also developing his own swing and a profound love of the game that would never dissipate.

“Just (being with) his older brother and then all the attention he would get from other people saying, ‘This kid is amazing.’” Jo Anne remembered. “Ever since he was little it’s been that way.”

The fact that Cole Young has never had a formal instruction or hitting or fielding lessons in his life seems to back up his mom’s belief that so much of Cole’s talent is indeed inherent. The parents were on the same page early on by just letting their son’s natural swing develop on its own.

Even as he got older and began receiving top-notch instruction from his association with US Elite Baseball and Canes Baseball, he continues to make his own adjustments as needed. It’s certainly worked out pretty well so far and there’s no reason to think it won’t continue.

“I’ve just always felt like Cole was so relaxed and never got nervous,” Jo Anne said. “Perfect Game has been amazing because they give so much exposure on a different level. … As he got older, Perfect Game really exposed him to the best kids in the world. …

“I’m always proud of him no matter what he does; I’m always there to support him. I always focus on the positive. That’s my whole belief in life is that God has a reason for everything and you’re blessed.”
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