FORT MYERS, Fla. – A week of dominance that would rival any prior PG Series event in its history was finished off in style for the South squad at the Freshman PG Series Classic. The South finished the week with a pair of shutouts in Saturday’s semifinal and championship games, culminating with a 7-0 victory over Central thanks to a tremendous pitching performance from Ben Hutchins (2020, Inman, S.C.).
Heading into Saturday’s early morning semifinal matchups, it was destined for Puerto Rico White and South to meet as they mowed through their five pool play contests with relative ease, but Puerto Rico White was eliminated in Friday’s quarterfinals leaving South the clear favorite.
Mason Flinn (2020, Houston, Texas) tossed a five-inning complete game as his South teammates racked up 10 hits in four innings, defeating West 8-0 to march on to the championship game.
In the championship game, the South bats were on display early and often as they hung up three runs in the first. With two outs, Marcus Mott (2020, Lake Charles, La.) lined a single to center, stole second and third and came into score on an RBI single by Flinn. After Trent Land (2020, Seneca, S.C.) drew a walk, Ryan Guerra (2020, Zapata, Texas) dumped a bloop single to right, scoring Flinn. Land came in on a balk to make it 3-0 and give Hutchins plenty of run support to work with.
In the second the lead grew even bigger as South would string together five straight hits with one out to net three runs.
Tyler Stith (2020, Hendersonville, Tenn.) laid down a bunt single and Trenton Byrd (2020, Louisville, Ky.) followed with a single to left. T.J. Provenzano (2020, Mount Pleasant, S.C.) would knock in Smith with a double to the gap in right-center, and Hutchins helped himself bouncing a ground ball through the left side to score Byrd. Vincent Martino (2020, Theodore, Ala.) would follow with a single to right to bring in Provenzano, and Mott would make it 7-0 on a sacrifice fly to score Martino from third.
From there, Hutchins simply didn’t allow Central to string together scoring opportunities, using a fastball/breaking ball combination to great effect. As he entered the seventh inning with his pitch count nearing the end, he picked up a strikeout and departed finishing with nine in 6 1/3 innings while allowing just three hits.
Martino made quick work to seal the game, getting a strikeout and a flyout to right to end it.
South coach Artie Clyde had a plan installed for the week to get everyone rotated into each game equally, and incorporated a unique way to fill his batting order by going in order by the player’s numbers the entire week.
“Collectively, I’ve never been part of a team that played eight games and looked like they’ve been playing together for three years,” Clyde said. “The kids jelled, got along together and ragged on each other while picking each other up all week. You would have thought this team was an established travel ball team, and I couldn’t have asked for more the way they competed all week long.”
The outstanding performance of Hutchins in the championship game was a big reason why he garnered Most Valuable Pitcher for the week. He went 2-0, and racked up 11 strikeouts in 10 1/3 innings while surrendering just four hits.
Mott picked up Most Valuable Player for the tournament, starring on the mound and at the plate. Mott struck out seven hitters in three innings across two appearances, while going 7-for-13 with four RBI and stole five bases.
2017 Freshman PG Series Classic runner-up: Central
2017 Freshman PG Series Classic MVP: Marcus Mott
2017 Freshman PG Series Classic MV-Pitcher: Ben Hutchins
