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Tournaments  | Story | 7/10/2021

No pressure on this band of Outlaws

Jeff Dahn
Photo: Angelo Prieto (Perfect Game)

FORT MYERS, Fla. – This is intended as nothing more significant than a point of reference, but the scoreless inning streak for the 5 Star Outlaws 2023’s pitchers performing at the Perfect Game BCS 16u National Championship officially came to an end at 13 at City of Palms Park on Friday afternoon.

Just as another point of reference, the Outlaws 2023’s ability to score runs at a rapid-fire clip isn’t showing signs of letting up any time soon, a fact that should put the team’s faithful at ease with the event’s playoffs set to begin late Saturday afternoon.



The Outlaws, a collection of up-and-coming class of 2023 prospects who mostly call the Miami-area home, were stunningly good while dominating their opponents during the first three-game segment of pool-play Wednesday and Thursday. Just how good? Well, they earned the No. 1 seed for pool realignment after outscoring those three foes by a combined 32-0, leaving nothing for chance.

“We set the bar high for these guys,” program founder and head coach Alex Catoni told PG on Friday, speaking from the grandstand at venerable City of Palms. “Our pitching was great – we were able to shut almost every team down – but our defense was the key. We had guys diving all over the field … and when the defense is on and the pitching is on, we’re pretty much unbeatable.”

And don’t forget about the hitting. The three pool-play wins came by counts of 18-0, 6-0 and 8-0 and none of those outcomes were ever in doubt; the three games were decided in a total of 11 innings.

“Coming from [using] a wood bat to a metal bat it felt a lot easier putting the bat on the ball; we were just hitting,” the Outlaws nationally No. 347-ranked outfielder Andy Hernandez said. “Our fielding was really good, too; we made a couple of really good plays.”

But it’s appropriate to start this conversation with the pitching. Hernandez was one of six class of ’23 hurlers – Noah Alburquerque, Christopher Espinosa, Austin Manar, Kenny Manresa and Benjamin Segura were the others – who contributed to those 11 scoreless frames, and everything kind of fell into place from there.

“We’ve been doing really good [with] out pitching and we’ve been hitting, seeing the ball well, the whole team,” Outlaws slugger Angelo Prieto, ranked No. 323 nationally, said. “We have the pitching, the hitting [to be successful]...and as long as we’re doing what we’re doing right now we’ll be fine.”

It needs to be noted that the Outlaws 2023 kept this locomotive on the tracks by beating the Power Baseball 2023 Gold, 6-3, in their first pool-play game in the next set of three. Connor McShane, Manar and Devin Catoni handled the pitching duties in that game.

PG BCS national championship tournaments are structured so that teams are guaranteed six pool-play games (weather permitting) before the playoffs begin in Gold and Silver brackets; teams are re-seeded after the first three games are played and then put in new pools for the second three games.

By grabbing the No. 1 seed out of the first set, the Outlaws are now in a Gold Bracket pool along with all the other top dogs which, of course, brings challenges of its own.

“You can’t sleep on any of these teams because once you go into the Gold Bracket every team is good,” Coach Catoni said. “Like I tell our guys, it doesn’t matter who they are, who they beat, what their record is, our goal is one game at a time.”

So, about that hitting? After four games, Manuel Henriquez has seven hits (6 1Bs, 1 2B) and seven RBI; Devin Catoni delivered six hits (4 1Bs, 2 2Bs) and five RBI and Hernandez has six singles and five RBI. That leaves the 6-foot-1, 185-pound No. 323-ranked Prieto who has stroked three singles and blasted three home runs in 11 at-bats (.545); he also has nine RBI in the first four games.

“The way that these guys have been hitting...out bats are hot and that’s what you need,” Alex Catoni said. “And when you combine that with so many shutout innings, you’ve got a perfect storm.”

Like every other group in the 112-team field, the Outlaws started to experience a bit of cabin fever on Tuesday and Wednesday when rain from the remnants of a tropical storm kept them pretty much confined to their hotel.

In a round-about way, they were able to use that as motivation, knowing that rain can usually be expected in the afternoon hours here in Southwest Florida during the summer. It knew it was important that they were ready to play when a window of opportunity presented itself.

“Our thing was get there, get in and get out as quick as we can and let’s save on pitching...and just try to knock everybody out,” Coach Catoni said. “From the get-go our motto was to go out there and just get out of there as soon as we can...and that’s what we did; we knocked-out teams.”

The Five Star Outlaws 2023 are now 22-5-0 overall at the PG tournaments they competed at in the fall of 2020 and so far in the summer of 2021 – they will be at the PG 16u World Series in Sanford, Fla. later this month.

“These guys, they play hard for each other; it’s a team that plays as a unit,” Alex Catoni said. “I see a lot of teams and it’s almost like everyone is playing for their own stats and these guys play for the team.”

Catoni has ran a successful program for at least the last five years and there are kids on this roster that have been together since they were eight-year-olds. As time passes it always become necessary to add key pieces here and there but Catoni believes the team’s recipe for success begins with the chemistry and camaraderie the players enjoy when they’re spending time together, both on and off the field.

“This is a team that has been together for a long time,” the impressive Prieto said. “We really have a good squad...and we’ve been like a family for a long time and that’s really helped us as team.”

Added Devin Catoni, the coach’s son: “We’re an easy going group; we’ve all known each other for a pretty long time. All the new players that come onto the team, we treat them like family, and we just try to make them as comfortable as possible so they can do the best they can.”

Catoni started the Outlaws Travel Baseball organization in Miami Lakes, Fla., in 2009 as a small program working at the youth level. Once these players approached the 13u and older divisions, he found it necessary to seek out the support of larger, more established organizations just so his team could perform at the most high-profile events, like the PG BCS 16u National Championship.

In the beginning, he was able to work out an arrangement with the prominent South Florida-based Elite Squad program, a beneficial arrangement that lasted about four years. 5 Star Baseball, another one of the country’s most prominent organizations based in Georgia, brought them in a year ago and the team became the 5 Star Outlaws.

“It’s beneficial because of the exposure with a lot of the college connections,” Catoni said. “So from that aspect it does help, and it helps us sell that bigger picture to the parents. You’re going to have more exposure; you’ll have more schools coming up to see their kids...and so the name helps.”

Some of the more high-profile players rostered with the Outlaws aren’t here this week for a variety of reasons, including a pair of 2023 top-500 Miami commits in Antonio Jimenez and Keanu Rodriguez, and Florida State commit David Davila. Catoni’s focus, obviously, is on the players that are here and he said he honestly believes several of them will be committed by summer’s end, as well.

“Hopefully some of these guys get what they deserve because they’re filling in big shoes,” he said. “We’ve missed those guys the whole entire summer and these guys have been stepping it up...and they deserve the same recognition.”

The coaches with the 5 Star Outlaws 2023 aren’t big on talking about expectations, although based on the successes they’ve enjoyed recently the players are certainly aware that they’re out there. To Alex Catoni’s way of thinking, a relaxed dugout is much more productive than one that’s stressed-out so he sees no reason in adding any more weight to their shoulders.

“It’s pressure enough when you’re on the field pitching or when you’re up there and you’ve got two on with two outs,” he said. “There’s that pressure already and there’s no need for me to put any more [on them]. My job as a coach is to put the guys where they belong in their positions and motivate them on the field. As they get older, we try to take away pressure as a coach and provide more of a support system for them.”

Count Andy Hernandez among the players who appreciate the support while also realizing this is a team that just might have something to prove as it moves towards a likely berth in bracket-play:

“We were coming in with a chip on our shoulders because there are a lot of good teams here that got recognized and we don’t really get recognized like that,” he said. “We know that we’re better than [a lot] of those teams so we come in trying to prove that.”

Devin Catoni is also very much on-board: “It’s a great feeling to be this comfortable going onto our next games, knowing that we did so well in the beginning. We feel like we can just keep on going until we can be stopped.”

So yeah, that 13 inning scoreless streak posted by the 5 Star Outlaws 2023’s pitchers came to a close in the third inning of their game at City of Palms Friday afternoon, but that’s of no concern. This is a talented team playing with, as one of their top players pointed out, a bit of chip on their collective shoulders, and that can be a dangerous deal for any future opponent. Confidence, after all, is another potent weapon to wield.

“We’re super excited,” Coach Catoni said. “All six pool games are taken into consideration [for playoff seeding] so we should be up there highly ranked. It’s going to be a challenge...but these guys have done it all summer. Most of these guys have been playing for the last eight years now so they know exactly what they’ve got to do.”
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