The Dallas Patriots made their first visit to the Perfect Game WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla., last October thanks in large part to the way the talented team performed at the 2010 WWBA South Qualifier in and around Austin, Texas, a month earlier.
The Patriots, boasting a roster that included nine Division I commits and featured shortstop Trevor Story and outfielder Josh Bell, cruised to the South Qualifier championship with a 6-0 record and earned the automatic paid berth to the WWBA World Championship.
Story, who had signed with LSU, went on to become a first round compensation pick by the Colorado Rockies. Bell, a Texas signee, was taken in the second round by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Both players signed professional contracts.
After winning their four pool-play games in Jupiter, the Patriots were eliminated in the first round of the World Championship’s playoffs. Coach Logan Stout was just thrilled to be in the field.
“We want to be involved in as many Perfect Game events as we possibly can,” Stout said last year while still in Jupiter. “This is our first year that we got to come to Jupiter, and I promise we’ll be back anytime they’ll let us. We’re grateful for everything (Perfect Game) does for the game and we’d love to be a part of everything they’ve got going on.”
The season of the Jupiter qualifying tournaments is here again, with one event already in the books and six more on the schedule over the next three-plus weeks. The qualifiers book-end the prestigious Perfect Game-EvoShield National Championship (Underclass and Upperclass) scheduled for Sept. 23-26 in the Phoenix area.
The 2011 WWBA Northeast Qualifier #1 was held Aug. 19-21 in Camden, N.J., and the championship – and paid berth to the World Championship – was won by the Triple Threat Bearcats out of Gilbertsville, Pa. The 2011 WWBA Northeast Qualifier #2 is Sept. 10-12 in Yaphank, N.Y. The Baseball U Prospects from West Long Branch, N.J., won the 2010 event.
The first of two Southeast Qualifiers will be played in Marietta, Ga., Sept. 16-18, with the second scheduled for Sept. 30-Oct. 2. The 2011 WWBA Florida Qualifier is Sept. 16-19 in Fort Myers, Fla.
The 2011 WWBA South Qualifier in Austin, Texas, and the 2011 WWBA Kernels Foundation Championship in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, are both Sept. 30-Oct. 3. Farrah Builders from Oceanport, N.J., won the 2010 Kernels Foundation crown.
Chet Lemon’s Juice, based in Mount Dora, Fla., won last year’s Florida Qualifier with a 7-0 record and went on to make some serious noise at the 2010 WWBA World Championship. The Juice wound up playing nine games in four days in Jupiter, the last of which was a 3-3 tie with the Dirtbags in the championship game that gave the two stellar clubs a share of the championship.
Chet Lemon’s Juice, owned and operated by former big-league standout Chet Lemon, has already secured a spot at this year’s World Championship and will return with many of the same players who finished 7-1-1 at last year’s tournament.
“We had a young team last year, so we had a lot of those guys coming back,” Lemon said at the Memorial Day Classic in Fort Myers in late May. “All of those kids that were a part of that team – almost our whole starting lineup – so we feel real good about it. They’re experienced, they went through it and they were tested by fire last year.”
Please follow the link below to view the complete 2011 PG event schedule:
https://www.perfectgame.org/Schedule/Default.aspx?Type=Tournaments