FORT MYERS, Fla. – The premier Team Elite Baseball organization out of Winder, Ga., sent five teams to this week’s 15u PG BCS Finals. After the 26-team playoff field was assembled at the conclusion of play Tuesday, two Team Elite squads – Louisville Slugger 15u and Prime 15u – found themselves still playing for a PG national championship. Now, only one will be given that opportunity on Thursday.
Team Elite Louisville Slugger 15u beat all five of its pool opponents by a combined score of 37-12 during play earlier this week, used those outcomes to earn a No. 4 playoff seed and a first-round bye, and then won second-round and quarterfinal games Wednesday to secure a spot in Thursday’s final four.
Semifinal games are schedule at 10:30 a.m. and the championship game at 1 p.m. with all the action at the CenturyLink Sports Complex (formerly the Lee County Sports Complex), the spring training home of the Minnesota Twins.
No. 4 Team Elite Louisville Slugger 15u (7-0-0) faces No. 1 Chain National (7-0-0) out of Warner Robins, Ga., in one semifinal, while the No. 10 Central Florida Gators (7-1-0) from Altamonte Springs, Ga., go up against the No. 6 East Cobb Astros (7-0-0) from Marietta, Ga., in the other.
The Team Elite Sluggers’ 15u Wednesday playoff wins came by scores of 12-4 over No. 13-seed CBC Team DeMarini 2018 (St. John’s Fla.) in second-round play and 7-2 over No. 5 Florida Stealth Red 15u (Delray Beach, Fla.) in the quarterfinals. As had been the case all week, the Sluggers 15u had their bats ramped up and got just enough solid pitching to carry them through.
This same team was at the 15u Perfect Game/East Cobb Invitational in Emerson, Ga., June 8-11 and fell flat on its face. It went 1-2-0 in pool-play – the pool championship was won by the East Cobb Black Knights – and then couldn’t even be consoled in its consolation game, settling for a 1-1 tie with Team DeMarini GA Gold 15u. The performance left a bad taste all the way around.
“We came back after that the next week and really focused on practice and did everything together and came down here as a team,” Team Elite LS 15u head coach Daniel Szathmary said after his team’s quarterfinal win. “I can’t say enough about every single one of these guys and the other coaches. We just came out here and busted our butts and we got it done.
“We have a couple of guys on this team that are new to the Team Elite program and in this last week they really came together and it’s really become a family.”
Team Elite Louisville Slugger 15u swung potent bats while charging into Thursday with its 7-0 record. The Sluggers averaged 8.0 runs on 8.5 hits in their seven wins; they hit .330 (59-for-179) with 16 extra-base hits as a team.
Will VanPamelen, Levi Byrd and Zac Hill – all prospects from the class of 2018 – have been especially productive at the plate. VanPamelen is 8-for-19 (.421), with two doubles, two triples, a home run, 11 RBI and eight runs scored; Byrd is 8-for-12 (.667) with a double, five RBI, seven runs and a .737 on-base percentage; and Hill is 9-for-24 (.375) with a triple, six RBI and five runs.
“Hitting is definitely our strength,” Szathmary said. “If we keep hitting the way we are I don’t think anybody else can take us and we have a good shot. We’ve got a couple of good arms left so we’re ready to make a run.”
Ten Team Elite LS 15u pitchers have been just good enough all week, compiling a 2.55 ERA in 44 innings, allowing 41 hits and striking out 29 while walking 23.
Team Elite Prime 15u finished 4-1 during pool-play and could do no better than the playoffs’ No. 8 seed. That meant a first-round playoff game for the Primers and the requirement of winning three straight games in mid-90s heat and humidity on Wednesday just to survive into Thursday.
Things started well enough with an 8-0 win over No. 25 Mo Steel Baseball 2018 (Hialeah, Fla.) in first-round play before a 5-4 loss to No. 9 Florida Burn Pennant (Sarasota, Fla.) ended Team Elite Prime 15u’s tournament stay with a 5-2 record.
“We’ve got a situation where the weather’s now a factor,” Prime head coach Brooke Richards said before the start of play Wednesday. “Now we’ve got to play three games back-to-back-to-back just to get into the semifinals (Thursday).
“When you consider getting up and trying to play an 8 a.m. game, turning around and playing again at 10:15 and then turning around and trying to play again at 1 o’clock, it’s going to be a long day. Trying to keep them focused throughout the whole day for three straight game is going to be quite a challenge.”
The Prime’s Oscar Serratos, the nation’s No. 171-ranked prospect in the 2017 class, had 10 hits – including two doubles – and hit .476 in seven games. 2017 Matt Oldham, a Wake Forest commit ranked No. 114, had eight hits and batted .500 and 2018 Orlando Adams Jr. was especially impressive, collecting six hits in 18 at-bats (.333) including three doubles and a home run; he drove in eight runs and scored five more.
The team also features the services of 2018 outfielder Parker Meadows, the younger brother of 2012 PG National Showcase and PG All-American Classic alumnus Austin Meadows, a first-round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2013.
The six age-group PG BCS Finals are the only Perfect Game tournaments of the summer where players are required to use BBCOR bats instead of wood bats. Szathmary said this team swings wood in every other event it plays in, even certain non-PG showcase events where the opposition is swinging metal bats. Szathmary liked the way his hitters were squaring-up the ball using wood the last couple of weeks and felt confident they would be just fine with metal in their hands this week.
Team Elite Prime’s Richards said his squad had also been swinging nothing but wood coming into this tournament and the switch back to metal may have affected his team’s outlook early in the week.
“You pick up the BBCOR bats again and guys tend to press and try to do a little bit much,” he said. “Getting back to being simple and having a good approach and staying in the middle of the field is important to us.”
Szathmary is not surprised it is his Team Elite squad that is playing into Thursday at the 15u PG BCS Finals. Even before sent his squad out on the field earlier in the week he knew it had the makeup to be something special. It was just a matter of time before good things started to happen to this group, and that started this week here in Southwest Florida.
“Coming down here gives them a chance to play good competition from all over; see good pitching,” Szathmary said. “They’ve got to battle through adversity, and they did everything I asked of them this week.
“’Family’ is the only way I can describe it,” he concluded. “If somebody messes up and doesn’t make a play, the next person backs them up, and that’s all you can ask for in my opinion. These last couple of weeks, we’ve seen each other every day in May and every day in June and, again, it’s just all about family and coming together as a team.”