Nationals Arm Race

Yankees signee and Riverdale Baptist alum Harold Cortijo is the inarguable player of the year in the area for 2017. Photo via WP

Final HS Post of the 2017 year.

Here’s the rough schedule of posting and what we’ll cover:

• #1: DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: post-season kickoff.  Covers: MD regionals, VA district brackets, Private school tourney updates.  Usually publishes the week before Memorial day tournament finals.
• #2: Maryland State Champs, Northern VA Regional Champs crowned.  Covers: MD state finals, VA regionals finals.  Usually publishes first week of June.
  #3: Virginia State Champions crowned .  Covers: VA state tourneys, recaps MD, DC, Private School results.  Publishes mid-June once the Va state tourney wraps up.
• #4: Players of the Year/All-State lists and final rankings (this post); publishes early July once all the all-state lists are published.

We have finally passed all the “All-Everything” lists start getting published.  Here’s my tracker of them.  I try to note the player of the year in each case.  If i’m missing something, please let me know.  I’ve put results in red that I either cannot find or are behind a paywall or seem to have been discontinued.  I realize this is kind of anti-climactic at this point; lots of these players mentioned were drafted weeks ago and may already be playing.  But it takes some of these orgs til late June/early July to announce.

Individual Player Accolades Announced

In addition to being playoff-baseball time, this is also the time of the year that we start to see player awards.  I’ll put these in as they publish, but we won’t expect most of these until the end of June.

• Gatorade announced their player of the year awards on 5/29/17:
  • Maryland: Harold Cortijo, RHP/OF from Riverdale Baptist.  Committed to play at Seminole State, drafted in the 14th round by the New York Yankees; signed on 6/18/17.
  • Washington DC: Jack Roberts, RHP/SS from St. Johns.  Committed to play at Elon.  Undrafted.
  • Virginia: Andrew Abbott, LHP from Halifax County HS.  Committed to play for UVA.  Drafted in 36th round by the New York Yankees; likely to go to school.

• Louisville Slugger All-Americans: not sure if being named any longer.
• National High School Coaches Association (NHSCA) All Mid Atlantic Region: can’t find a link but has apparently been named as per MaxPreps bios on Cortijo and Abbott.
• MaxPreps High School All-Americans; named 7/3/17.  Jordon Adell  National player of the year.  Cortijo, Abbott
• Baseball America High School All-Americans: named 6/27/17.  Jordon Adell  National player of the year.   No DC/MD/VA players on any of the 1st, 2nd or 3rd team this year.
• USA Today/American Family All-USA teams.  named 6/13/17.   Jordon Adell  National player of the year.   Harold Cortijo named to 3rd team All-USA.
• American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA)/Rawlings High School All Americans: named 6/22/17.  MacKenzie Gore POTY.  Danny Hosley from Langley and Kody Milton from Severna Park named to 3rd team.
• Collegiate Baseball High School All-Americans: named 6/16/17: Tanner Burns is POTY.  Jose Rivera, Harold Cortijo, and  Andrew Abbott named.
• Perfectgame.org/Rawlings All-Americans: Jordon Adell and MacKenzie Gore were their National Player and Pitcher of the year (both were upper 1st round picks)
  • Maryland: Harold Cortijo
  • Washington DC: none named.
  • Virginia:  Andrew Abbott
• Washington Post All-Met teams: Announced 6/9/17.   Harold Cortijo, RHP/OF from Riverdale Baptist is All Met player of the year.
• The Baltimore Sun’s All-Metro Team: Announced 6/25/17.  Kody Milton a Jr. 3B from Severna Park, is POTY.  Early commit to UMaryland.
• Richmond Times-Dispatch All-Metro Team: announced 6/27/17. Evan Justice– Collegiate School, a LHP from Richmond committed to NC State.
• Virginian Pilot All-Tidewater team:  Hunter Gregory, DH/RHP from Hickory is the POTY.  Committed to ODU.
• Virginia All 6-A North Regional team: Langley’s Danny Hosley is player of the year (no PG profile/unknown college commit).  Madison’s Jake Nielsen pitcher of the year (a Junior w/o a current college commitment).
• Virginia All 6-A South Regional team: Austin Cabone from Cox and Hunter Vay  a Catcher from Thomas Vale co-players of the year.   Cabone is commited to George Mason, Vay to Virginia Commonwealth/VCU.
• Virginia All 5-A North Regional team: Andrew Abbott, LHP from Halifax County HS player of the year.
• Virginia All 5-A South Regional team: certainly named, cannot find link.
• Virginia All 4A West Regional team: Will Merriken OF from Kettle Run player of the year.  Committed to Roanoke College.
• Virginia All 3A East Regional team: Daniel Brooks SS from Spotsylvania player of the year.   Committed to GMU.
• Other Virginia All-Regional teams: pending/unknown;
• Northern Virginia All-District teams: Available at this link at Novabaseballmagazine.com, thanks to Joey Kamide for all his hard work.
• NovaBaseballMagazine Nova-NINE: Michael Ludowig is the Northern Virginia player of the year; Wake Forest commit.
• PrepBaseballReport All Maryland Team: Harold Cortijo, RHP/OF from Riverdale Baptist is POTY.
• PrepBaseballReport All Virginia/DC Team:  Andrew Abbott, LHP from Halifax County HS is POTY.
• VHSL All-State Teams:
  • 6-A: Austin Cabone RHP from Cox is player of the year.  GMU commit.
  • 5-A: Andrew Abbott, LHP from Halifax County HS is Player of the Year, UVA commit.
  • 4-A: Will Merriken OF from Kettle Run is POTY.  Roanoke College
  • 3-A: Justin Showalter, RHP from Turner Ashby, is POTY.  JMU commit.
  • 2-A: Hunter Brown OF from John Battle HS is POTY.  ? commit.
  • 1-A: Austin Smallwood, RHP from Eastside HS is POTY.  ? commit
• VISAA’s All-State teams:
  • Division I All State Team with several Paul VI and Flint Hill players.  Player of the Year: Evan Justice– Collegiate School, a LHP from Richmond committed to NC State.
  • Division II All State Team.  Player of the year: Ethan Murray– Miller School, a Junior SS/RHP who sports a 4.0 and is an early commit to Duke.
  • Division III All State Team.   Player of the Year: Carter Davis– Blessed Sacrament-Huguenot, a C from Powhattan committed to St. Andrews Presbyterian College.
• Maryland All-MIAA All-State teams: behind a paywall that i’m tired of fighting 🙂
  • MIAA A division: behind a paywall
  • MIAA B division: behind a paywall
  • MIAA C division: behind a paywall
• Anne-Arundel County All-Baseball team: Kody Milton a Jr. 3B from Severna Park, is POTY.  Early commit to UMaryland
• All Baltimore-City 2017 Baseball team: behind a paywall
• All WCAC 2017: Jack Roberts, RHP/SS from St. Johns player of the year.
• All MAC 2017: no POTY named; if you asked me I’d probably go Carter Bosch, P/SS from the Potomac School, who was All-Met 1st team as a junior.
• All IAC 2017: Randy Bednar, SS from Landon is IAC POTY.  Committed to UMaryland.

If I missed an award, or if you know of something I don’t, don’t hesitate to post.