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Prep Baseball Coverage 2019; DC, MD, VA Regional and State Champs

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Welcome to my DC Area Prep Baseball Tourney coverage for 2019.   We kind of got pressed for time this year, so we’re summarizing at the finish of all the area regional and state championships this year all in one post instead of spreading it among 3-4 different posts like we’ve done in the past.

This post summarizes the State championships for DC, MD and VA, highlighting the regional champs, and reports on the winners of the various big-time private school conferences.

 

Virginia

All state brackets available from this link at VHSL, and the regional brackets are here.  In 2019, The state semis/finals got pushed a week across the board due to weather.  This gave pitching-weak teams a distinct advantage versus having to win a 3-games-in-5 days format.  All finals were on Friday 6/14/19.

Class 6 State Finals:  thanks to NovaBaseballmagazine.com’s coverage of Class 6 Regionals.  State Class 6 Bracket.  Records entering the state tourney.

  • Region 6A: #1 Ocean Lakes (17-6), #2 Cox (18-5).  Ocean Lakes wins the region as 5th seed, #1 seed Grandby upset first round.
  • Region 6B: #1 James River (19-3), #2 Colonial Forge (16-8).  Top seeds Cosby and Thomas Dale both upset first round.
  • Region 6C: #1 Lake Braddock (23-3), #2 West Springfield (14-11).   Region final a rematch of the district final; a very weak Region this year (only 7 teams even with winning records).
  • Region 6D: #1 Westfield (22-3), #2 Centreville (18-8); Region final a rematch of the district final.

Class 6 State Quarters results:  All four regional champs advanced in close games on 6/4/19. Westfield ended West Springfield’s attempts to repeat as State Champs 5-4 in walk-off fashion.  Ocean Lakes took out Colonial Forge 2-0.  Lake Braddock held off Centreville 5-4, scoring 5 in the first and making them stick, and James River beat Cox 4-3.

Class 6 State Semis: Both Northern Virginia teams advanced to the final; Lake Braddock taking out James River 9-6, and Westfield taking out Ocean Lakes 9-7.

Class 6 State Final: Lake Braddock wins its first State title since 2012 6-2 over Westfield behind a huge day from All Met POTY Lyle Miller-Green‘s massive day at the plate.

Class 5 State Finals:  thanks to NovaBaseballmagazine.com’s coverage of Class 5 Regionals.  Class 5 State Bracket.  Records entering the state tourney.

  • Region 5A: #1 Hickory (22-1), #2 Menchville (19-4).  #2 seed one-loss Hampton upset early, but dominant Hickory holds serve as one of the best teams in the state.
  • Region 5B: #1 Mills Godwin (19-3), #2 Prince George (19-3):  Regional final cancelled; #1 Mills Godwin given title.
  • Region 5C: #1 Stone Bridge (16-9), #2 Broad Run (16-9): Stone Bridge upset both its higher-seeded district rivals to win Region.
  • Region 5D: #1 Stafford (21-3), #2 Halifax (22-3).   Huge upset of #1 seed Potomac clears path for Stafford to take regional title.

Class 5 State Quarters results: One upset in the State Quarters.  Halifax destroyed Stone Bridge 11-0 to advance.  The other regional champs all went through: Stafford blanked Broad Run 5-0.  Hickory squeaked by Prince George 3-1 to end their chances to repeat as State champs.  And Mills Godwin blanked Menchville 5-0.

Class 5 State Semis Results: Stafford walked-off Hickory in a crazy 11-10 game, while Mills Godwin walked-off Halifax in the other 5-4 to advance to the state title game.

Class 5 State Final: Stafford held on to beat Mills Godwin 4-3.

Class 4 State Finals: thanks to NovaBaseballmagazine.com’s coverage of Class 4 Regionals.  Class 4 State Bracket.  Records entering the state tourney.

  • Region 4A: #1 Lafayette (16-7), #2 Great Bridge (18-6); Lafayette beat top seed and defending regional champ Grafton en route to the upset title.
  • Region 4B: #1 Hanover (19-2), #2 Midlothian (15-7); Hanover cruised to title as #1 seed, looking to get back to the state final for the 3rd time in 4 years.  Midlothian makes the state tourney for the 1st time since 2005.
  • Region 4C: #1 Riverside (16-7), #2 Kettle Run (15-9): There’s only 4 teams in Region 4C: Riverside Beat the 19-3 Sherando en route to the title.
  • Region 4D: #1 Liberty Christian Academy (24-1), #2 Salem (18-5); LCA does not slip up this year, cruising to title as #1 seed.

Class 4 State Quarters results:  Just one upset in the quarters, with Great Bridge downing Hanover 7-4 in a rematch of the 2014 AAA state championship.  Liberty Christian destroyed Kettle Run 11-0.    Lafayette blanked Midlothian 8-0.  Riverside beat Salem easily 9-3.

Class 4 State Semis Results: Lafayette continued its upsetting ways, taking out one of the top teams in the state in Liberty Christian 8-2, while Riverside blanked Great Bridge 3-0 to advance to the state title game for the 2nd time in 3 years.

Class 4 State Final: Riverside literally “threw away” the game, losing on a 2-run error to Lafayette, completing an improable run for the Williamsburg-based school.

Class 3 State Finals: thanks to NovaBaseballmagazine.com’s coverage of Class 3 Regionals.  Class 3 State Bracket.  Records entering the state tourney.

  • Region 3A: #1 Tabb (19-3), #2 Park View-South Hill (22-2): #1/#2 seeds of the regi0n advance.
  • Region 3B: #1 Brentsville District (20-3), #2 Warren County (16-6): Region goes chalk, #1 over #2 in final.
  • Region 3C: #1 Fluvanna County (20-3), #2 Brookville (18-8): #1 seed Fluvanna County holds serve.
  • Region 3D: #1 Lord Botetourt (15-8), #2 Abingdon (22-3); Lord Botetourt wins region as #6 seed over top-seeded Abingdon.

Class 3 State Quarters results:  Just one upset in the quarters, with Brookville beating Lord Botetourt 6-2.  Tabb beat Warren County 7-5, Fluvanna eased past Abington 1-0, and Brentsville squeaked past Park View 5-4.

Class 3 State Semis Results: Tabb over Brookeville 4-3, Fluvanna over Prince William County’s Brentsville 5-4.

Class 3 State Final: Fluvanna County out-slugged Tabb 16-10 for the title.

Smaller Classifications: Class 2 State Bracket and Class 1 State Bracket

  • Class 2 State Quarter finalists: King William, Stuarts Draft, Chatham, Lebanon as region winners, Nandua, Page County (defending state champ), Appomattox County and John Battle as regional runners-up.
  • Class 2 State Semi finalists: Lebanon over Page County, Chatham over Stuarts Draft.
  • Class 2 State Final: Chatham beats Lebanon 23-5.
  • Class 1 State Quarter finalists: Lancaster, Riverheads (defending state champ), Auburn (2017 state champ), Patrick Henry-Glade spring region winners, Colonial Beach, William Campbell (2015 state champ), Galax, Chilhowie as regional runners-up.
  • Class 1 State Semi finalists:  Lancaster over Patrick Henry , Auburn over Riverheads (all four regional champs won in the quarters)
  • Class 1 State Final: Auburn defeats Lancaster 9-0 for the title.

Recent Virginia HS champs:  Virginia has Class 1-A through Class 6-A  Before 2014, we just AAA, AA and A.

2018: See this post for the 2018 state tourney wrap-up

  • In 6-A, West Springfield blew open the game late to defeat Western Branch 12-2 to take their first title since 2010.  Thomas Dale, Lake Braddock semis.
  • In 5-A, Prince George beats Potomac 8-0.  Freedom-South Riding, Deep Run semis.
  • In 4-A, Salem walked-off against Jamestown to win their first state title 2-1.  Grafton, Fauquier semis.
  • In the smaller classifications, Spotsylvania won 3-A, Page County won 2-A and Riverheads won 1-A.

2017: See this post for 2017’s state tournament wrap-up for all 6 divisions

  • In 6-A, Western Branch d Cox 6-4.  Oakton, Patriot semis.
  • In 5-A, Briar Woods d Halifax 5-4 in 14 innings.  Menchville and Prince George semi-finalists.
  • In 4-A, Liberty Christian Academy d Hanover 8-5.  Harrisonburg, Great Bridge semi-finalists.
  • In the smaller classifications, Turner Ashby won 3-A, Dan River won 2-A and Auburn won 1-A.

2016: See this post for 2016’s state tournament wrap-up for all 6 divisions

  • In 6-A, Chantilly d Battlefield 3-2.  Hylton & Cosby state semis.
  • In 5-A, Nansemond River defeated Mountain View 5-3.  Potomac, Mills Godwin semi finalists.
  • In 4-A, Hanover d Liberty Christian Academy 13-12.  Jamestown, Kettle Run semi finalists.
  • In the smaller classifications, Rustberg repeated 3-A, Maggie Walker won in 2-A and Rappahannock won 1-A.

2015: See this post for 2015’s state tournament wrapup for all 6 divisions:

  • In 6-A, Madison d Chantilly 6-5.  First Colonial & defending champ Western Branch were state semifinalists.
  • In 5-A, Stone Bridge d Marshall 9-4.  2014 finalists Hickory & Freeman were state semifinalists.
  • In 4-A, Glen Allen d Jefferson Forrest 9-3.  Fauquier & Hanover were state semifinalists.
  • In the smaller classifications, Lafayette won 3-A, Virginia High repeated in 2-A and William Campbell won 1-A.

2014: see this post for 2014’s state tournament wrap up for all 6 divisions.

  • In 6-A, Western Branch d Chantilly 6-4.  McLean and Cosby were state semifinalists.
  • In 5-A, Hickory d Freeman 6-4.  Stone Bridge and the surprising Freedom-South Riding semi finalists.
  • In 4-A, Hanover d Millbrook 7-1.
  • In the smaller classifications, Loudoun Valley won 3-A, Virginia High won 2-A and Northumberland won 1-A.

2013: AAA: Hanover d Great Bridge. Hanover’s super-junior Derek Casey (committed to UVA) outlasts Great Bridge and their 1st round talent Connor Jones (now attending UVA after spurning a likely late 1st round draft position).  Lake Braddock and Oakton beaten in the semis.

2012: AAA: Lake Braddock d Kellam 4-0. Lake Braddock lost to West Springfield in the regional title game but then blitzed to a state championship.

2011: AAA: Great Bridge d South County in the state final, giving the powerful South County its first and only loss on the season after starting the season 28-0.  Lake Braddock was the regional finalist and lost to Great Bridge in the state quarters.

2010: AAA: West Springfield d Woodbridge in the final, giving Woodbridge its only loss on the year. WT Woodson regional finalist.

Complete history of Virginia HS Champions: from VHSL’s website.  Covers all sports and has results for a century.  Lots of fun to dig through.  Note: if this link fails, its because VHSL has moved it yet again; I have an updated copy of the history books in PDF format if you’re interested.

 

Maryland

Full Brackets here at the MPSAA website and direct links to the four State-wide brackets are linked directly below.  Here’s your 2019 champs.

  • Maryland 4-A: Regional champs Eleanor Roosevelt (undefeated entering playoffs), Sherwood, Old Mill and Walt Whitman are regional champs.  Sherwood and Old Mill in the final, and Old Mill wins the state title in 9 innings, giving Sherwood only its 2nd loss of the year.
  • Maryland 3-A: Regional champs Northern, Milton Wright, J.M. Bennett, and defending state champ Thomas Johnson are regional champs.    J.M. Bennett beats C. Milton Wright in the final.
  • Maryland 2-A: Regional champs La Plata, Hereford (both defending regional champs), Fallston, Middletown.  LaPlata beats Middletown in its 3rd state final in four years.
  • Maryland 1-A: Regional champs McDonough, Randallstown, Col. Richardson and Boonsboro (McDonough and Boonsboro repeat as regional champs).  In the final, Col. Richardson beats McDonough in 9 innings.

A quick list of past Maryland State champions by division:

 

DC

Past DC Winners:

  • 2018: DCIAA = Wilson.  DCSAA = Wilson.
  • 2017: DCIAA = Wilson.  DCSAA = Gonzaga
  • 2016: DCIAA = Wilson.  DCSAA = St. Albans
  • 2015: DCIAA = Wilson.  DCSAA = Gonzaga
  • 2014: DCIAA = Wilson.  DCSAA = St. Johns
  • 2013 and prior: Wilson hasn’t lost in the DCIAA in 20 years … finding DCSAA tourney winners on google is tough.

Private Leagues: WCAC/MAC/IAC and VISAA/Maryland Private

State-level Private School tourneys 2019 results.

  • MIAA: All 2019 regular season standings here, and all playoff brackets here.
    • Division A: Calvert Hall regular season champ.   Calvert Hall over Gilman for the Division A playoff title.
    • Division B: Glenelg Country regular season champ.  Gerstell over Boy’s Latin for the Division B  playoff title, coming back from the loser’s bracket to win it.
    • Division C: Concordia Prep regular season champ.   Concordia Prep over Indian Creek in 12 innings for the Division C playoff title.
    • This link at MIAA has the 2019 playoff brackets AND a historical list of all MIAA champs by division dating to 1995.  I’ve got a screen shot just in case it disappears in the future.
  • VISAA:
    • Division I:  Local teams participating included #9 Paul VI, #4 O’Connell, #6 Episcopal, and #7 Flint Hill.  None advanced, as the VISAA Division I tournament was dominated by Richmond teams.  In the end, nationally ranked and #1 seed Benedictine won the Division I title over  #2. St. Christophers.
    • Division II: #1 seed The Miller School runs away with the title.
    • Division III:  #1 seed Walsingham Academy wins the state title.
  • Maryland Private School Tournament; (unsure this event happens any more)

DC-area Private School Leagues results for 2019:

A side-note: DC private school baseball power house Riverdale Baptist did not field a Varsity team in 2019 after its coach took a college job, it lost a ton of senior talent and the rest of the remaining seniors all transferred to play for more competitive teams.  For a team that was nationally ranked in 2018, its kind of jarring not to be talking about them in a DC-area prep story.  Lets hope the new coach can get the program back on track.

 

Local and National High School Baseball Ranking Lists: highlighting where local teams ended up.

  • Washington Post All Met Sports Area top-10 ranking (5/20/19): St. Johns the clear #1 team in the area, winning WCAC, DCSAA titles.
  • NovaBaseballMagazine.com Rankings: (5/28/19): NoVa Class 6 regional champs Westfields and Lake Braddock 1-2 in the rankings.
  • VISAA maintains Private school polls/rankings (5/6/19): The two Division 1 finalists are 1-2 in the Division 1 poll.  The two teams who won Division II and III also #1 in their respective polls.
  • PrepBaseballReport maintains a VA State-Wide Power25 Rankings (5/20/19): St. Johns, LCA and Benedictine are top 3 teams.
  • Baltimore Sun Top-10 Poll Archives: (April 2019): looks like they weren’t very well kept up, but MIAA Division 1 power Calvert Hall listed as #1 Baltimore area team.
  • The Virginian Pilot Top-10 for Hampton Roads area: (3/18/19): Hickory named as top team in area.
  • Richmond times-Dispatch”804 Varsity” used to have rankings.
  • Baseball America’s National High School Rankings: (5/21/19): Benedictine #17 in the nation.
  • USA Today High School Experts top 25: (5/26/19) Benedictine #9 in the nation, St. Johns #13.
  • MaxPreps “Excellent 50” ranking: Benedictine #24.

These National rankings are dominated by teams in Texas, Florida and California, as you might expect.  These teams can play nearly 40 games and usually have at least 15-20 under their belts before DC/MD/VA teams even get going.  So its somewhat of an accomplishment just to have a local team get some recognition.  In fact, any cold-weather state team appearing in these lists is pretty special.

Major Newspaper Links/Resources for following prep baseball around the state

  • Washington Post’s AllMetSports section with standings and schedule results.
  • The Baltimore Sun’s high school page has information on some of the programs outside the DC area mentioned in the Maryland section
  • InsideNova.com‘s coverage of high school sports, but has put limits on the number of stories you can read.
  • Richmond Times-Dispatch has a HS scoreboard.
  • Hampton Roads Pilot (Hampton Roads) has scores for teams in the Chesapeake/Norfolk/Va Beach area.
  • NovaBaseballMagazine: great coverage of Prep baseball in NorthernVirginia (thanks to Joe Antonellis for the heads up on this great new resource).

Local Newspaper Coverage, including links to many local papers covering smaller jurisdictions.

Non-newspaper Links for Local and National Prep Baseball Coverage

Good Twitter accounts to follow:

  • https://twitter.com/toddeboss/lists/prepbaseball: I maintain an open list at my twitter account via this link, which contains direct links to dozens of local resources (including all the below).  Way too many retweets from the travel team accounts especially, but its a good way to keep up with local ball.
  • https://twitter.com/PBRVirginiaDC: Prep Baseball Report VA/DC coverage
  • https://twitter.com/NVBaseballMag: NoVa Baseball Magazine
  • https://twitter.com/NoVAHSBB
  • https://twitter.com/DynamicBaseball

Written by Todd Boss

June 21st, 2019 at 5:15 pm

Posted in High School,Local Baseball

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Prep Baseball Update #3 2018: Virginia State Champs crowned

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Welcome to my DC Area Prep Baseball Tourney coverage for 2018.

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, Virginia District and Regional Champs crowned.   Covers: MD state finals, VA regionals tourneys, DC playoff results.  Usually publishes after the Memorial Day weekend tournaments finish up.
  • #3: Virginia State Champions crowned (this post).  Covers: VA state tourneys, recaps MD, DC, Private School results.  Publishes mid-June once the Va state tourney wraps up.
  • #4: My theoretical “All DC/MD/VA Dream tournament” pairings, once all the state champs are finalized.
  • #5: Players of the Year/All-State lists and final rankings; publishes early July once all the all-state lists are published.

Lets see where we stand now with Virginia having completed their regional tournaments and setup state semi finals’ matchups.

All Virginia regional finals were played on 6/1/18, and all state tournaments finished up on 6/10/18.  Winners in all cases highlighted in bold red.

Virginia State tourney match-ups and tourney locations

All the state tourneys ran from June 5th-10th at the various sites.  All state brackets available from this link at VHSL, and the regional brackets are here.

 

Class 6 State Finals: Quarters on 6/5/18, Semis and Finals held at Deep Run HS in Richmond.

  • Class 6 Region A: First Colonial winner, Western Branch runner-up.
  • Class 6 Region B: Cosby winner, Thomas Dale runner-up.
  • Class 6 Region C: West Springfield winner, Lake Braddock runner-up.
  • Class 6 Region D: Battlefield winner, Chantilly runner-up

Class 6 State Quarters results:  Thomas Dale upset First Colonial 7-0, Western Branch upset Cosby 7-1 on a near no-hitter from Antonio Velazquez, West Springfield defeats Chantilly 4-2,  and Lake Braddock rallied late to upset Battlefield 6-5 in a battle of NoVa’s two top teams.

Class 6 State Semis Results: Western Branch defeats Thomas Dale 6-5 in extra innings.  West Springfield defeats Lake Braddock  6-2 for the 2nd time in a week to advance to the state title game.

Class 6 State Final: West Springfield blew open the game late to defeat the defending state champs 12-2 to take their first title since 2010.

Class 5 State Finals: Quarters on 6/5/18, Semis held at Glen Allen HS, final at Deep Run  HS in Richmond.

  • Class 5 Region A: Menchville winner, Maury runner-up.
  • Class 5 Region B: Deep Run winner, Prince George runner-up.
  • Class 5 Region C: Freedom-South Riding winner, Briar Woods runner-up.
  • Class 5 Region D: Potomac winner, Halifax County runner-up

Class 5 State Quarters results: Prince George upsets Menchville 8-1,  Deep Run beat Maury 8-6, Freedom-SR beats Halifax County 5-4, Potomac defeats defending state champ Briar Woods 3-1.

Class 5 State Semis Results:  Potomac blanked Freedom-South Riding 7-0, and Prince George got revenge for last week’s regional final and ended Deep Run’s cinderella story 7-3.

Class 5 State Final: Prince George beats Potomac 8-0 behind a 1-hit shutout from Buck Forbes.

Class 4 State Finals: Quarters on 6/5/18, Semis held at Kiwanis, final at Salem Memorial stadium in Salem (Roanoke).

  • Class 4 Region A: Grafton winner, Jamestown runner-up
  • Class 4 Region B: Dinwiddie winner, Powahatan runner-up.
  • Class 4 Region C: Fauquier winner, Woodgrove runner-up.
  • Class 4 Region D: Salem winner, Amherst County runner-up.

Class 4 State Quarters results:  Grafton defeats Powahatan 3-0, Jamestown upset Dinwiddie 7-3, Fauquier beat Amherst County 3-2 and Salem beat Woodgrove 7-2.

Class 4 State Semis Results: Jamestown got revenge against Grafton 10-8, and Salem downed Fauquier 8-3 behind a seven-run 6th inning.

Class 4 State Final: Salem walked-off against Jamestown to win their first state title 2-1.

 

Smaller Classifications: 

3A Quarters on 6/5/18, Semis and Final at Salem Memorial stadium in Salem (Roanoke).

  • Class 3 Region A: Hopewell winner, York runner-up
  • Class 3 Region B: Brentsville winner, Spotsylvania runner-up.
  • Class 3 Region C: Fluvanna County winner, Western Albemarle runner-up.
  • Class 3 Region D: Abington winner, Northside runner-up.

Class 3 State Quarters results: Spotsylvania upset Hopewell 5-2, Brentsville beats York 4-1, Fluvana County beat Northside 5-1, and Abington downed Western Albemarle 6-3,

Class 3 State Semis Results: Spotsylvania gets regional revenge over Brentsville 8-6, and Abington gets by Fluvanna County 8-2.

Class 3 State Final: Spotsylvania and Abington had to go to extra innings, where Spotsylvania prevailed 13-8 after exploding for 5 runs in the 8th.

2A and 1A brackets at VHSL site

  • Class 2 State Quarter finalists: Maggie Walker (2016’s 2-A champ), Stuarts Draft, Tazewell, Appotomax County
  • Class 2 State Semi finalists: Goochland, Chatham
  • Class 2 State Final: Page County over Virginia High 5-4.
  • Class 1 State Quarterfinalists:  West Point, Central-Lunenberg, Galax, Auburn (2017’s 1-A champion)
  • Class 1 State Semi finalists: Northumberland, Patrick Henry-Glade Spring
  • Class 1 State Final: Riverheads pounded Honaker 13-1 for the Class 1 State title.

Recent Virginia HS champs:  Virginia has Class 1 through Class 6.  Before 2014, we just AAA, AA and A.

2017: See this post for 2017’s state tournament wrap-up for all 6 divisions

  • In 6-A, Western Branch d Cox 6-4.  Oakton, Patriot semis.
  • In 5-A, Briar Woods d Halifax 5-4 in 14 innings.  Menchville and Prince George semi-finalists.
  • In 4-A, Liberty Christian Academy d Hanover 8-5.  Harrisonburg, Great Bridge semi-finalists.
  • In the smaller classifications, Turner Ashby won 3-A, Dan River won 2-A and Auburn won 1-A.

2016: See this post for 2016’s state tournament wrap-up for all 6 divisions

  • In 6-A, Chantilly d Battlefield 3-2.  Hylton & Cosby state semis.
  • In 5-A, Nansemond River defeated Mountain View 5-3.  Potomac, Mills Godwin semi finalists.
  • In 4-A, Hanover d Liberty Christian Academy 13-12.  Jamestown, Kettle Run semi finalists.
  • In the smaller classifications, Rustberg repeated 3-A, Maggie Walker won in 2-A and Rappahannock won 1-A.

2015: See this post for 2015’s state tournament wrapup for all 6 divisions:

  • In 6-A, Madison d Chantilly 6-5.  First Colonial & defending champ Western Branch were state semifinalists.
  • In 5-A, Stone Bridge d Marshall 9-4.  2014 finalists Hickory & Freeman were state semifinalists.
  • In 4-A, Glen Allen d Jefferson Forrest 9-3.  Fauquier & Hanover were state semifinalists.
  • In the smaller classifications, Lafayette won 3-A, Virginia High repeated in 2-A and William Campbell won 1-A.

2014: see this post for 2014’s state tournament wrap up for all 6 divisions.

  • In 6-A, Western Branch d Chantilly 6-4.  McLean and Cosby were state semifinalists.
  • In 5-A, Hickory d Freeman 6-4.  Stone Bridge and the surprising Freedom-South Riding semi finalists.
  • In 4-A, Hanover d Millbrook 7-1.
  • In the smaller classifications, Loudoun Valley won 3-A, Virginia High won 2-A and Northumberland won 1-A.

2013: AAA: Hanover d Great Bridge. Hanover’s super-junior Derek Casey (committed to UVA) outlasts Great Bridge and their 1st round talent Connor Jones (now attending UVA after spurning a likely late 1st round draft position).  Lake Braddock and Oakton beaten in the semis.

2012: AAA: Lake Braddock d Kellam 4-0. Lake Braddock lost to West Springfield in the regional title game but then blitzed to a state championship.

2011: AAA: Great Bridge d South County in the state final, giving the powerful South County its first and only loss on the season after starting the season 28-0.  Lake Braddock was the regional finalist and lost to Great Bridge in the state quarters.

2010: AAA: West Springfield d Woodbridge in the final, giving Woodbridge its only loss on the year. WT Woodson regional finalist.

Complete history of Virginia HS Champions: from VHSL’s website.  Covers all sports and has results for a century.  Lots of fun to dig through.  Note: if this link fails, its because VHSL has moved it yet again; I have an updated copy of the history books in PDF format.

That wraps up Virginia, the last local state to play its tourneys.

Written by Todd Boss

June 11th, 2018 at 10:54 am

Posted in High School,Local Baseball

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2016 Prep Baseball Update #4: Virginia State Champions crowned

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Chantilly 6-A state champs 2016. Photo via their twitter account @Tilly_baseball

Chantilly 6-A state champs 2016. Photo via their twitter account @Tilly_baseball

This is post #4 of High School Tourney coverage for 2016.  Here’s the schedule:

  • #1: DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: post-season kickoff.  Covers: MD regional kickoffs, VA district brackets, Private school tourney updates.  Usually publishes the week before Memorial day tournament finals.
  • #2: Maryland State Champs, Northern VA District Champs crowned   Covers: MD state finals, VA district tourneys, VA regional brackets, DC regular season results.  Usually publishes after the Memorial Day weekend tournaments finish up.
  • #3: Virginia Regional Results.   Covers: VA regional results, State brackets, and summarizes DC and MD.
  • #4: Final Prep Baseball Tourney Update: Virginia State Champions crowned (this post).  Covers: VA state tourneys, recaps MD, DC, Private School results.  Publishes mid-June once the Va state tourney wraps up.
  • #5: List of all the final Player of the Year links that I’ve been collecting.

In this post, we will cover the Virginia State tournaments, re-cap MD, DC and private schools, and various Player/Teams of the year that have been released as of the date of publication.

Text in Red are pending results; I’ll update this post as the results come in even post publishing.

Virginia State tourney match-ups and tourney locations

All the state tourneys run from June 8th-11th at the various sites.  All state brackets available from this link at VHSL.

Semifinals and Finals:
1A/2A – at Radford/Salem, June 10-11
3A/4A – at Liberty University, Lynchburg, June 10-11
5A/6A– at Lake Braddock/Robinson., June 10-11

You might wonder why the 5A/6A competitions are at (to be brutally honest) rather run-down high school fields in Northern Virginia.  Well its because ALL the spring state tournaments are being decided at the same schools at the same time.  Softball, Soccer, Track, Baseball.  So you need high schools with enough capacity to park everyone.  And that leads you to basically the two biggest schools in the area.

Now, why don’t they just host this thing at George Mason University instead??  A great question.  Without having any direct knowledge, but having been involved with field reservations for the various adult and youth baseball teams for 20+ years, the answer seems to be this: the GMU baseball coach is possessive about “his” field and thus no amateur teams are ever allowed on it.  In fact; in case you never noticed there’s no lights on Mason’s baseball diamond; that’s because if there were lights, there’d be a ton more pressure to give up use of the field to youth and amateur teams.  Frankly, there’s *zero* reason why Mason couldn’t feature itself and its facilities by hosting state championships (like Liberty and Radford do for the smaller divisions).  Its just typical myopic behavior by baseball coaches in the area who are ultra protective of their fields (while forgetting that its us, the Virginia tax payers, that funded their construction and pay their salaries).  Rant off.

 

6-A State Finals: held at Robinson and Lake Braddock HS in Northern Virginia.

  • 6-A North Winner Chantilly (23-2), runner-up Battlefield (22-4).
  • 6-A South Winner Hylton (19-6), Cosby (13-7)

6-A State Semis Results:  In the first state semi, Battlefield threw their ace Jake Agnos, and Battlefield made a 2 run inning stand in a 2-1 victory over Hylton.  Agnos strikes out 10 in his final prep start.  In the other semi, Chantilly eased past Cosby 4-1 to setup the third meeting on the year between Chantilly and Battlefield.  (Washington Post story on both games)

6-A State Final:  In the State final, Battlefield jumped ahead late 2-0 but Chantilly scored 3 in the bottom of the 7th to walk off a State champion.  Gut punch for Battlefield, who threw their ace to get there and were in position to win.  Brett Norwood Jared Enders got the walk-off hit to win it in the end.  Chantilly, twice in a row runners-up, are finally your 6-A State champs (thanks for correction in the comments LV).

6-A State champ: Chantilly, 25-2 on the season.

5-A State Finals: held at Robinson and Lake Braddock HS in Northern Virginia.

  • 5-A North Winner Mountain View (20-4), runner-up Potomac (20-7)
  • 5-A South Winner Nansemond River (19-7), runner-up Mills Godwin (19-5).

5-A State Semis Results:  In the first semi, Mountain View held serve against Mills Godwin and won 3-2.  In the second semi, Nansemond outlasted Potomac 3-1 to setup a 5-A final of Regional champs.  5-A State Final: Nansemond River defeated Mountain View 5-3 to capture their first state title.

5-A State champ: Nansemond River, 21-7.

4-A State Finals: held at Liberty University in Lynchburg.

  • 4-A East Winner Hanover (22-1), runner-up Jamestown (22-2)
  • 4-A West Winner Liberty Christian Academy (18-3), runner up Kettle Run (20-2)

4-A State Semis Results: In the first semi, Hanover won a close game 2-1 over Kettle Run.  In the last semi-final played of the evening, Jamestown led Liberty Christian the whole way, but LCA kept coming back and ended the game with a walk-off hit by Zack Hess, who had pitched the whole game.  LCA advances 5-4 to setup a dream 4-A final between two of the best teams in the state.  The 4-A final was perhaps one of the craziest playoff games ever contested; Hanover held a 7-1 lead heading into the 6th inning, LCA scored eight runs in the 6th inning to take the lead 9-7.  Hanover answered by scoring 6 runs the following inning, taking a 13-9 lead into the last.  LCA rallied, scored 3 runs themselves to cut the lead to 13-12 without recording an out, but then stranded the tying runner at second to lose the state title game to Hanover.  The recap is worth the read.  What a game.  Hanover wins their third state title in four years.

4-A State champ: Hanover, 24-1.

3-A State Finals: held at Liberty University in Lynchburg.

  • 3-A East Winner, Poquoson, runner-up William Monroe
  • 3-A West Winner: Turner Ashby, runner-up Rustburg.

3-A State Semis Results: Rustburg took out Poquoson 6-3 in the first state semi on the strength of a 5-run sixth inning.  In the other semi, William Monroe blanked Turner Ashby 3-0 setting up an unlikely state final where neither regional winner advanced.  In the final, Rustburg outlasted William Monroe 3-2 to take the state title.

3-A State champ: Rustberg.

Smaller Classifications: held in Salem and at Radford University.

  • 2-A match-ups: Maggie Walker d Grayson 2-1 in the first semi.  Goochland 2-time defending champ pounds Virginia 11-4 in the other on the back of a 9-run inning.  In the state final, Maggie Walker 3, Goochland 1
  • 1-A match-ups: Windsor d Fort Chiswell 3-1 in the first semi.  Rappahannock defeats Eastside 4-2 in the other.  In the state final, Rappahannock 8, Windsor 7

Recent Virginia HS champs:  Before 2014, we just AAA, AA and A; now we have 1-A through 6-A.

2015: See this post for 2015’s state tournament wrapup for all 6 divisions:

  • In 6-A, Madison d Chantilly 6-5.  First Colonial & defending champ Western Branch were state semifinalists.
  • In 5-A, Stone Bridge d Marshall 9-4.  2014 finalists Hickory & Freeman were state semifinalists.
  • In 4-A, Glen Allen d Jefferson Forrest 9-3.  Fauquier & Hanover were state semifinalists.
  • In the smaller classifications, Lafayette won 3-A, Virginia High repeated in 2-A and William Campbell won 1-A.

2014: see this post for 2014’s state tournament wrap up for all 6 divisions.

  • In 6-A, Western Branch d Chantilly 6-4.  McLean and Cosby were state semifinalists.
  • In 5-A, Hickory d Freeman 6-4.  Stone bridge and the surprising Freedom-South Riding semi finalists.
  • In 4-A, Hanover d Millbrook 7-1.
  • In the smaller classifications, Loudoun Valley won 3-A, Virginia High won 2-A and Northumberland won 1-A.

2013: AAA: Hanover d Great Bridge. Hanover’s super-junior Derek Casey (committed to UVA) outlasts Great Bridge and their 1st round talent Connor Jones (now attending UVA after spurning a likely late 1st round draft position).  Lake Braddock and Oakton beaten in the semis.

2012: AAA: Lake Braddock d Kellam 4-0. Lake Braddock lost to West Springfield in the regional title game but then blitzed to a state championship.

2011: AAA: Great Bridge d South County in the state final, giving the powerful South County its first and only loss on the season after starting the season 28-0.  Lake Braddock was the regional finalist and lost to Great Bridge in the state quarters.

2010: AAA: West Springfield d Woodbridge in the final, giving Woodbridge its only loss on the year. WT Woodson regional finalist.

Complete history of Virginia HS Champions: from VHSL’s website.  Covers all sports and has results for a century.  Lots of fun to dig through.

Maryland

Here’s the state finals results in Maryland.  Brackets here at the MPSAA website.

A quick list of past Maryland State champions by division past what we have here.

The Maryland public high school seasons are now complete.

DC Public Schools/DCIAA:

Private Leagues: WCAC/MAC/IAC and VISAA/Maryland Private

All local area Private schools’ seasons are now complete.

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 keep this as a running list as announcements are made before doing a final publication at the end of the year.

Gatorade announced their player of the year awards on 5/24/16.  (Link to all Gatorade/USA Today players of the year per state)

  • Maryland: Spalding’s Tyler Blohm won the Maryland award.  Committed to Maryland.
  • Washington DC: St. John’s Cam Remalia (by way of Waldorf, MD) won the DC award.  Committed (per PG) to Coastal Carolina.
  • Virginia: Flint Hill’s Khalil Lee won the Virginia award.  Committed to Liberty but likely to get drafted early.

Pending Awards to be announced/expected later this spring:

  • VISAA’s All-State teams, Division I, Division II and Division III.  Khalil Lee (Flint  Hill) is the Division 1 player of the year.  Harry Brown (Greenbrier Christian) is Division II player of the year.  Andrew Lowe (Southampton Academy) is Division III player of the year.
  • Washington Post All-Met teams: Jake Agnos is the 2016 All-Met Player of the year.
  • Meanwhile, here’s a fantastic list of all All-Met teams in all sports going back to 1991 that i’m spinning into a “where are they now” post to be done sometime in the future.
  • Virginia All 6-A North Regional team: Jake Agnos, LHP Battlefield (ECU commit) is the Pitcher of the year, Jared DiCesare, Chantilly (George Mason commit) is the Player of the year.
  • Virginia All 6-A South Regional team: Fox Semones, SS/RHP Hylton (James Madison commit) is the Player of the Year.
  • Virginia All 5-A North Regional team: Alex Smith C from Mountain View (Navy commit) is player of the year.
  • Virginia All 5-A South Regional team: Michael Blanchard, RHP Nansemond River (Old Dominion) is player of the year
  • Virginia All 3-A East Region team: Noah Murdock, RHP from Colonial Heights (Virginia commit)  is the player of the year
  • Other Virginia All-Regional teams: pending; sometimes hard to come by
  • VHSL All-State Teams: pending release
  • NovaBaseballMagazine.com has selected All conference teams for all the Northern Virginia-based conferences; click on the “Standings” link from their home page, navigate down to the division in question, and you’ll get the final 2016 conference standings, then the results of the conference tournament, and the all conference team.  I’m not sure if these are “official” all-district teams or if these are NBM’s staff selections.
  • Louisville Slugger All-Americans: tba 6/12/16 eta
  • Rawlings Perfect Game All-Americans:
  • USA Today All-Americans: tba 6/10/16 eta
  • Baseball America All-Americans: tbd
  • The Baltimore Sun’s All-Metro Team (if exists)
  • Richmond Times-Dispatch All-Richmond team (if exists)
  • Virginian Pilot All-tidewater team (if exists)
  • Maryland MIAA All-State teams

My master list of links used to cover HS Baseball:

Local and National High School Baseball Ranking Lists: Updated for 5/23/16 in most cases.

  • Washington Post All Met Sports Area top-10 ranking: Madison maintained #1 ranking most of the season but now Chantilly & Battlefield will lay claim.
  • NovaBaseballMagazine.com Rankings: Madison and Chantilly have dominated the rankings all year, Battlefield, Kettle Run, Mountain View & Marshall there too.
  • PrepBaseballReport maintains a VA State-Wide Power25 Rankings: Greenbrier Christian, Hanover, Liberty Christian and Chantilly leading the way.
  • Baltimore Sun Top-10 Poll Archives: Perennial power Spalding has been at the top for a good chunk of the season.  Spalding, Chesapeake, Severna Park 1-2-3 in final 5/23/16 ranking.
  • The Virginian Pilot Top-10 for Hampton Roads area: Private school powerhouse Greenbrier Christian, Grassfield and one-loss First Colonial 1-2-3 in final 5/31/16 poll.
  • Richmond times-Dispatch Richmond-Area top-10: perennial 4-A power Hanover leads the way.
  • UsaToday’s National High School “Expert” Rankings 5/25/16: Hanover comes in at #16, Spalding at #21.
  • USAtoday’s National “Computer” Rankings 5/25/16: Just Hanover at #21.
  • Baseball America Top 25: No local teams ranked.  Madison was in the pre-season list but quickly dropped out with its early season tourney losses.
  • MaxPreps “Excellent 25” ranking: No local teams listed. Madison started #11
  • MaxPreps “Excellent 50” rankings: No local teams listed.
  • MaxPreps All-Virginia Rankings: Hanover, Grassfield 1-2, then 4-A Jamestown (maybe a bit high), then the two big private schools Greenbrier Christian and Liberty Christian.  Highest ranked 5-A team is Mountain View, so there’s your 6A/5A/4A favorites.

These National rankings are dominated by teams in Texas, Florida and California, as you might expect.  These teams can play nearly 40 games and usually have at least 15-20 under their belts before DC/MD/VA teams even get going.  So its somewhat of an accomplishment just to have a local team get some recognition.  In fact, any cold-weather state team appearing in these lists is pretty special.

Major Newspaper Links/Resources for following prep baseball around the state

  • Washington Post’s AllMetSports section with standings and schedule results.
  • The Baltimore Sun’s high school page has information on some of the programs outside the DC area mentioned in the Maryland section
  • InsideNova.com‘s coverage of high school sports, but has put limits on the number of stories you can read.
  • Richmond Times-Dispatch has a HS scoreboard.
  • Hampton Roads Pilot (Hampton Roads) has scores for teams in the Chesapeake/Norfolk/Va Beach area.
  • NovaBaseballMagazine: great coverage of Prep baseball in NorthernVirginia (thanks to Joe Antonellis for the heads up on this great new resource).

Local Newspaper Coverage, including links to many local papers covering smaller jurisdictions.

Non-newspaper Links for Local and National Prep Baseball Coverage

Good Twitter accounts to follow:

  • https://twitter.com/toddeboss/lists/prepbaseball: I maintain an open list at my twitter account via this link, which contains direct links to dozens of local resources (including all the below).  Way too many retweets from the travel team accounts especially, but its a good way to keep up with local ball.
  • https://twitter.com/PBRVirginiaDC: Prep Baseball Report VA/DC coverage
  • https://twitter.com/NVBaseballMag: NoVa Baseball Magazine
  • https://twitter.com/NoVAHSBB
  • https://twitter.com/DynamicBaseball

Written by Todd Boss

June 12th, 2016 at 6:46 pm

Posted in Local Baseball

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Pre-2016 Draft coverage; mocks and local players

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Kansas prep star Riley Pint may not go #1 overall, but he'll be close. Photo via thatballsouttahere.com

Kansas prep star (and subject of Jeff Passan’s latest book “The Arm”) Riley Pint may not go #1 overall, but he’ll be close. Photo via thatballsouttahere.com

The MLB rule-4 (Amateur) draft starts tonight, 6/9/16 at 7pm.  The MLB Network will have full coverage of the first round of picks. This post is my dumping ground of draft coverage for 2016.

This post uses last year’s format, with links to use to see draft prospect rankings, links to help cover the draft (which I personally come back to time and time again), some blurbs on local players of interest, and then links to a bunch of mock drafts.

Draft Coverage so far at NAR for 2016:

  • Here’s the big post on all marquee DC/MD/VA prep players ahead of the 2016 season (only guys who are “significant” draft prospects are mentioned here).
  • Here’s the same for DC/MD/VA tied College players
  • After the draft happens, I’ll review both of the above posts and list who actually got picked and who’s going to school.

Draft Links of importance

Here’s a slew of Draft Prospect rankings : these are NOT the same as mock drafts; see further down for those.  You’re going to see the same locally tied names on nearly all of these lists; they’re all individually profiled further below.

 

Now, some news about College Players with local ties who are serious draft candidates (meaning first couple of rounds projected or present on top 100 draft ranking lists).  Note that I’ve got a far, far larger list of local players that I’ll follow-up on after the draft; these are just the significant/top 10 round types.

  • Connor Jones, UVA RHP via Great Bridge; at this point perhaps the 2nd or 3rd best college pitching prospect thanks to fall-offs from a number of other candidates.  Probably a mid-1st rounder, though some pundits (Keith Law) have him rated far lower.
  • Buddy Reed, OF from Florida via Finksburg, MD (NW of Baltimore).  Probably a late first rounder or sandwich pick, perhaps lower.
  • Matt Thaiss, UVA C who has shot up the rankings; now projected as early 2nd rounder.  Keith Law likes him as a late 1st rounder.
  • Mike Shawaryn: RHP for Maryland; stock has really fallen this season; now perhaps just a 4th rounder.  A late season push improved his draft status somewhat.
  • Andrew Knizner, C from NC State by way of Glen Allen, VA: gritty ballplayer who has played his way into perhaps 5th round discussions.
  • Errol Robinson, SS from Ole Miss by way of Maryland; struggled badly this season, dropping his stock from early 2nd round projections; no idea where he’s project to go now.

Local Prep players of note who are serious draft candidates:

  • Joe Rizzo, INF for Oakton HS.  Remains the highest ranked local draft prospect, projecting as anywhere between a mid-1st rounder and an early 2nd rounder.  South Carolina commit.  MLBpipeline.com’s write-up profiles his draft prospects the best.
  • Khalil Lee LHP/OF for Flint Hill.  Some have him 2nd-3rd round, others have him projected 4th-5th.  Part of the confusion is where to play him; he was an undersized speedy CF candidate… then suddenly flashed low 90s off the mound as a lefty starter this year.  Liberty commit.
  • Zack Hess, 1B/OF from Liberty Christian Academy (Lynchburg).  3rd round projection.  LSU commit.
  • Noah Murdock, a RHP from Colonial Heights (Richmond).  4th round projection by rank, UVA commit.
  • Garrett Stallings, RHP from Grassfield HS.  Not generally listed but may be rising, Tennessee commit.

Re-draft players of interest to Nats fans:  these are re-drafts that have come back up.  See the Draft Tracker for underclassmen draftees from last year and/or Prep draftees from 2013 who are now draft eligible again.

  • Garrett Hampson, SS from Long Beach State.  Nats 2013 26th round pick, now projecting as a 5th or 6th rounder.
  • Reid Humphreys, RHP/OF two-way player from Mississippi State.  Nats 2013 36th rounder, now projecting as a 4th/5th rounder.
  • Shaun Anderson, RHP from Florida.  Nats 2013 40th rounder, now projecting as a late 3rd rounder.
  • John Reeves, C from Rice.  Nats 2015 20th rounder who started 56 games for the CWS-bound Rice team and hit above .300; looks like a good choice to return to school.
  • Alec Rash, RHP from Missouri: Nats 23rd round pick in 2015.  Quit baseball altogether last fall to pursue collegiate basketball.
  • Blake Smith, RHP from WVA: Nats 24th round pick in 2015: posted a 2.20 ERA as West Virginia’s closer for the season with 8 saves and 25 appearances.
  • Mack Lemieux, LHP from Jupiter HS and then Palm Beach State CC.  Nats 14th round pick in 2015.

 

Mock Drafts

Every year I say i’ll stay away from the Mock Draft links … and every year I come back.  Here’s a running collection.  DCProSports.com has a master list of Mock drafts at this link that has many more than I’ve got listed below.

  • Fangraphs/Scott Moore‘s Mock #1: Groome, Senzel, Lewis, Puk, Pint.
  • BaseballAmerica/Hudson Belinsky‘s Mock #1: Groome, Senzel, Pint, Puk, Perez.
  • BaseballAmerica/Hudson Belinsky‘s Mock #2: Puk, Lewis, Pint, Moniak, Ray.
  • BaseballAmerica/John Manuel Mock #1: Puk, Lewis, Pint, Moniak, Groome.
  • BaseballAmerica/John Manual BA Mock #4: Moniak, Puk, Ray, Lewis, Pint
  • Manual Mock #5: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray
  • ESPN/Keith Law Mock #1 (Insider only): Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
  • ESPN/Keith Law Mock #2 (Insider only): Puk, Lewis, Groome, Moniak, Perez.
  • ESPN/Keith Law Mock #3: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray
  • ESPN/Keith Law Final Mock: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray
  • D1baseball.com/Frankie Piliere Mock #1: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
  • D1baseball.com/Frankie Piliere Mock #2: Puk, Lewis, Ray, Groome, Perez
  • MLBPipeline.com/Jim Callis Mock #1: Puk, Senzel, Lewis, Moniak, Ray.
  • MLBPipeline.com/Jim Callis  Mock #2: Puk, Senzel, Lewis, Moniak, Perez.
  • MLBPipeline.com/Jim Callis Final Mock: Moniak, Senzel, Ray, Puk, Collins
  • MLBPipeline.com/Jonathan Mayo Mock #1: Puk, Senzel, Lewis, Groome, Perez.
  • MLBPipeline.com/Jonathan Mayo Final Mock: Moniak, Senzel, Ray, Puk, Rutherford
  • MinorLeagueBall Mock #1 Part one and Part two: Lewis, Puk, Groome, Rutherford, Moniak
  • Scout.com/Taylor Ward Mock #1: Groome, Senzel, Rutherford, Lewis, Ray
  • Scout.com/Taylor Ward Mock #2: Puk, Ray, Lewis, Groome, Rutherford.
  • Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #1: Groome, Hansen, Puk, Moniak, Pint
  • Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #2: Senzel, Perez, Ray, Groome, Rutherford
  • Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #3: Garrett, Groome, Rutherford, Senzel, Perez
  • Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #4: Puk, Perez, Ray, Moniak, Rutherford
  • Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #5: Puk, Lewis, Pint, Moniak, Rutherford
  • Scout.com/Jeff Ellis final Mock: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray
  • NatsGM.com/Ryan Sullivan‘s Mock #1: Puck, Senzel, Lewis, Groome, Perez
  • Si.com/Chris Crawford‘s Last minute Mock Draft: Puk. Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray
  • Baseball Prospectus; have not seen any mock drafts from BP this year.
  • PerfectGame.org Mock Drafts are Insider/Premium only; this link is to their 2016 Draft Coverage home page.

 

Todd Boss’ Mock draft?  Based on my vast level of expertise (sarcasm) and the thousands of man hours i’ve put in scouting players in person and cultivating industry sources (also sarcasm), and instead reading the tea leaves of the gazillion other mock drafts, I’ll take this as my initial guess for the top 5: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Moniak

The only thing that gives me pause is this: Puk *stunk* in the regional.  4 and a third, 5 hits and 5 runs given up to UConn.  Sorry; if you’re going to go 1-1 you need to do an outing like 7ip, 4hits, 10ks, 0 walks in your swan song.  I wonder if that was enough to have Philly move to a different pick.  And Perez just got popped for failing a drug test, instantly removing him from top-5 consideration.  So, given Puk’s stinker most of the last minute mocks have Philly off of Puk and doing Moniak as an under-slot deal.  And I can’t disagree.  So my final mock will be: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray

And this top 5 means that Groome and Pint (who I think are the two best talents in this draft) fall to teams outside the top 5 and they’re going to be absolutely ecstatic.

ACTUAL DRAFT Results: Moniak, Senzel, Anderson (??), Pint and Ray.  Just like everyone predicted.

Who are the Nats going to take at #28 and #29?

No frigging idea.  Lots of these Mock drafts attempt to guess, to put some names with the Nats down that far.  But consider the 2011 draft.  Everyone had Anthony Rendon going 1-1.  Suddenly he slips and the Nats grab him at #6 in a total gift.  The point is this: we have no idea how even the top 5 picks will go, so predicting what’s going to happen at pick #6 is folly, let alone #28.  Nats will take BPA, probably will mix up a safer pick (aka college arm) with a riskier pick (aka a high school bat) and go back to back $2M bonus slots.  I also like the running theory that the nats will get the Scott Boras special and “package” two Boras clients together at 28/29 and basically split the bonus pools.  Names often mentioned here include Kyle Funkhauser and the prep pitcher/basketball player Matt Manning.  One would be an over draft, one would be a steal if he gets here.  We’ll see.

 

Written by Todd Boss

June 9th, 2016 at 9:05 am

Posted in Draft,Local Baseball

Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Prep Baseball Update #3 2016: Virginia Regional Results & State Tournament fields

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Chantilly; 6-A North Region champs for 2016. Photo via @PhilChantilly on twitter

Chantilly; 6-A North Region champs for 2016. Photo via @PhilChantilly on twitter

This is post #3 of High School Tourney coverage for 2016.  Here’s the schedule:

  • #1: DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: post-season kickoff.  Covers: MD regional kickoffs, VA district brackets, Private school tourney updates.  Usually publishes the week before Memorial day tournament finals.
  • #2: Maryland State Champs, Northern VA District Champs crowned   Covers: MD state finals, VA district tourneys, VA regional brackets, DC regular season results.  Usually publishes after the Memorial Day weekend tournaments finish up.
  • #3: Virginia Regional Results (this post)..  Covers: VA regional results, State brackets, and summarizes DC and MD.  Usually publishes the first week of June.
  • #4: Final Prep Baseball Update: Virginia State Champions crowned.  Covers: VA state tourneys, recaps MD, DC, Private School results.  Publishes mid-June once the Va state tourney wraps up.

In this post, we will cover the Virginia Regional results, preview the VA State brackets, have summaries to the DC, Maryland and Private school results, and will continue with POTY reports.

Text in Red are pending results; I’ll update this post as the results come in even post publishing.

Virginia Regionals:

All regional brackets are available at this VHSL main link.

6-A North Regionals: Here were your qualifiers:

  • Conference 5/Concorde: Chantilly, Centreville, Westfield, Robinson
  • Conference 6/Liberty: Madison, McLean, Washington & Lee, South Lakes.
  • Conference 7/Potomac: Lake Braddock, West Springfield, West Potomac
  • Conference 8/Cedar Run: Battlefield, Patriot, Osborne Park, Osbourne.

My Initial Predictions: all four #1 seeds advancing with a likely Battlefield-Chantilly regional final.

6-A North Regional Tournament Results: There was only one upset by seeding in the first round of the 6-A North playoffs (#3 seed Centreville over #2 seed Annandale); otherwise most of the teams played close, one- or two-run games.   In the 5/27/16 quarters, the recent dominance of the Liberty district was exposed as both Madison and McLean were defeated handily.  The Regional semis are now Battlefield vs Centreville (who blanked Madison 3-0) and Chantilly versus Patriot (who upset #1 seed Lake Braddock).  A good showing for the Cedar Run conference in 2016.  In the Regional Semis, Battlefield’s Jake Agnos struck out 13 in a tight 2-0 win over Centreville, while Chantilly walked off against Patriot.  In all honesty, I think this is the best regional final to be expected, pairing the two beat teams in the region.  Hats off to Chantilly for making their third straight regional final, where they’ll be favored after easily handling Battlefield’s #2 starter when these two teams faced off earlier this spring.  In the 6/3/16 final, Chantilly easily handled Battlefield for a second time this year, getting 5 runs in the first and a complete game from its #2 Forrest Wagner and winning the regional title 8-3.  Chantilly’s 2nd region title in three years.

State Semi finalists: Chantilly (23-2), Battlefield (22-4).

 

6-A South Regional: Here were your qualifiers:

  • 6-A Conference 1/Coastal: First Colonial, Ocean Lakes
  • 6-A Conference 2/Monitor Merrimac: Grassfield, Western Branch
  • 6-A Conference 3: Manchester, Cosby.
  • 6-A Conference 4: Colonial Forge, Hylton

My initial predictions: Colonial Forge and Grassfield in the Regional final.

6-A South Regional Results: In the 5/31/16 quarters, upsets prevailed as all four road teams won against higher seeded opponents.  Hylton beat Manchester, Western Branch beat First Colonial, Cosby upset Colonial Forge and Ocean Lakes beat the favored Grassfield.  In the state semis, Cosby rallied late to walk-off against favored Ocean Lakes while Hylton upset the favored Western Branch to setup a highly unlikely regional final.  In that final, upstart Hylton traveled to Cosby and won on the road 7-3 to take the Regional title.  The WP had a nice feature on Hylton pitcher Fox Semones (committed to JMU) after the regional completed.

State semi-finalists: Hylton (21-7), Cosby (13-7)

 

5-A North Regional: Here were your qualifiers:

  • Conference 13/Capitol: Marshall, Edison, Lee
  • Conference 14: Briar Woods, Stone Bridge, Tuscarora
  • Conference 15: Mountain View, Potomac, Stafford
  • Conference 16: Halifax, Atlee, Orange

My Initial Predictions: Mountain View-Marshall regional final with Mountain View prevailing.

5-A North Regional tournament Results: (5-A North Bracket Here) In the #2/#3 seed play-in battles, only Edison was exposed and lost easily to Tuscarora.  In the quarters, only Briar Woods was upset (by Potomac), setting up two intriguing regional semis matches on 6/1/16.  In the semi-finals, Potomac left it late to upset the favored Marshall and return to the State tournament for the first time in a generation while Mountain View squeaked out a victory over Halifax 2-1.  In the final, Mountain View rallied late to prevail over Potomac to take their first regional title 5-4.  Evan Antonellis continued his hot post-season with a 3-run homer early, but Potomac couldn’t hold them off.

State Semi finalists: Mountain View (20-4), Potomac (20-7)

5-A South Regional: Here were your qualifiers:

  • Conference 9/Atlantic: Hickory, Indian River.
  • Conference 10/PenSouth: Menchville, Nansemond River
  • Conference 11: Glen Allen, Mills Godwin.
  • Conference 12: Prince George, Matoaca

My Initial Predictions: I like Hickory and Glen Allen’s chances.

5-A South Regional tournament Results:  In the quarters on 5/30/16, both Conference 11 teams (Glen Allen & Mills Godwin) won easily over their Conference 12 foes to setup a district rematch in one Regional Semi.  In the other quarters, Nansemond River upset Hickory while Indian River upset Menchville.   In the semis, Mills Godwin completed a season sweep over district rival Glen Allen (beating them for the third time) while Nansemond River (Suffolk) continued their upset-minded run to the Regional final with an easy win over Indian River.  In the finals, Nansemond River jumped ahead early and never looked back, beating Godwin 10-1.

State Semi finalists: Nansemond River (19-7), Mills Godwin (19-5).

4-A East Regional: We used to call 4-A a “smaller” conference, but now perhaps the best team in the state is in 4-A, so we’ll follow it more closely.  There are no 4-A schools in Northern Virginia; these are all down-state schools, but they’re important to follow nonetheless.  Here were your qualifiers:

  • Conference 17: Great Bridge, Wilson
  • Conference 18/Ironclad: Jamestown, Lafayette
  • Conference 19: King George, Louisa
  • Conference 20: Hanover, Dinwiddie

My Predictions: Hard not to predict a Great Bridge, Hanover final; Great Bridge is a long-time 5-A powerhouse newly demoted to 4-A and Hanover won the old AAA in 2013 before the splitting into 4A/5A/6A.

4-A East Regional tournament Results: In the quarters, #1 seeds Hanover (19-1) and Jamestown (19-1) advanced, Dinwiddie upset King George, and Lafayette upset powerhouse Great Bridge in a quarterfinal delayed 3 days by rain.  In the semis, Jamestown blanked Dinwiddie 7-0 to advance to States.  In the other semi, Hanover destroyed Lafayette 14-3 to setup a dream 4-A East final between two one-loss teams.  In that final, Hanover wiped out Jamestown 11-0 to take the regional title for the 3rd time in four years and lay claim to the best team in the state.

State Semi Finalists: Hanover (22-1), Jamestown (22-2)

 

4-A West Regional: Here were your qualifiers: I’m not entirely sure why Conference 21 is now split into two.

  • Conference 21 East: Millbrook, Woodgrove
  • Conference 22 West: Loudoun County, Loudoun Valley
  • Conference 22: Kettle Run, John Champe
  • Conference 23: Liberty Christian Academy, Jefferson Forrest
  • Conference 24: Salem, William Byrd

My Predictions: I think it has to be a one-loss Kettle Run versus the newly eligible Liberty Christian.  However, thanks to district tournament upsets there are some very tough matchups early in the regional tournament.

4-A West Regional tournament Results:   In the play-ins, Jefferson Forest and Loudoun Valley easily advanced.  In the Quarters, Millbrook outlasted Loudoun Valley in extra innings, Liberty Christian advanced easily when Zack Hess no-hit John Champe, Kettle Run squeaked by Jefferson Forest 3-2, and Salem eased by Loudoun County. In the Semis: Kettle Run absolutely destroyed Salem 15-1 (though to be fair, it was tied 1-1 heading into the 5th) while Liberty Christian gave up just 2 hits to Millbrook en route to a 5-1 victory to setup the dream final.  You have to favor LCA at this point, since Hess should be ready to go in the final.  In the final (which got delayed for 4 full days), LCA won a tough 4-3 game over Kettle Run for their first 4-A regional title (recall, they just converted to VHSL for this season).

State Semi Finalists: Liberty Christian Academy (18-3), Kettle Run (20-2)

Virginia Smaller Classifications: we’ll just summarize the regional finalists who are moving on to the state tournament.  Most all Finals set for 6/3/16.

  • 3-A East; Poquoson defeated William Monroe (who won their quarter 17-0).
  • 3-A West: Turner Ashby defeated Rustburg.
  • 2-A East: Maggie Walker defeated Goochland 8-5 in an abbreviated regional final.
  • 2-A West: Virginia High School defeated Greyson County 10-9 for its third straight regional title.
  • 1-A East: Windsor d Rappahannock
  • 1-A West: Eastside defeats Fort Chiswell 4-3, scoring 3 runs in the last to walk-off.

Virginia State tourney match-ups and tourney locations

All the state tourneys run from June 8th-11th at the various sites.  All state brackets available from this link at VHSL.

Semifinals and Finals:
1A/2A – at Radford/Salem, June 8-11
3A/4A – at Liberty University, Lynchburg, June 8-11
5A/6A– at Lake Braddock/Robinson., June 8-11

Here’s the state semis match-ups with records as of the start of the state tourney:

  • 6-A match-ups: Chantilly vs Cosby, Hylton vs Battlefield
  • 5-A match-ups: Mountain View vs Mills Godwin, Nansemond River vs Potomac.
  • 4-A match-ups: Hanover vs Kettle Run, Liberty Christian Academy vs Jamestown
  • 3-A match-ups: Turner Ashby-William Monroe, Poquoson-Rustburg
  • 2-A match-ups: Maggie Walker-Greyson County, Virginia High-Goochland
  • 1-A match-ups: Rappahannock-Eastside, Fort Chiswell-Windsor

 State Predictions:

  • I’ll go with a Chantilly-Battlefield re-match in 6-A; Battlefield has already beaten Hylton this year; it all depends on when they decide to throw Agnos.
  • Mountain View-Nansemond River in 5-A
  • Liberty Christian over Hanover
  • Chalk in 3-A: turner Ashby v Poquoson
  • Virginia High to three-peat in 2A
  • Eastside in 1A

Recent Virginia HS champs:  Before 2014, we just AAA, AA and A; now we have 1-A through 6-A.

2015: See this post for 2015’s state tournament wrapup for all 6 divisions:

  • In 6-A, Madison d Chantilly 6-5.  First Colonial & defending champ Western Branch were state semifinalists.
  • In 5-A, Stone Bridge d Marshall 9-4.  2014 finalists Hickory & Freeman were state semifinalists.
  • In 4-A, Glen Allen d Jefferson Forrest 9-3.  Fauquier & Hanover were state semifinalists.
  • In the smaller classifications, Lafayette won 3-A, Virginia High repeated in 2-A and William Campbell won 1-A.

2014: see this post for 2014’s state tournament wrap up for all 6 divisions.

  • In 6-A, Western Branch d Chantilly 6-4.  McLean and Cosby were state semifinalists.
  • In 5-A, Hickory d Freeman 6-4.  Stone bridge and the surprising Freedom-South Riding semi finalists.
  • In 4-A, Hanover d Millbrook 7-1.
  • In the smaller classifications, Loudoun Valley won 3-A, Virginia High won 2-A and Northumberland won 1-A.

2013: AAA: Hanover d Great Bridge. Hanover’s super-junior Derek Casey (committed to UVA) outlasts Great Bridge and their 1st round talent Connor Jones (now attending UVA after spurning a likely late 1st round draft position).  Lake Braddock and Oakton beaten in the semis.

2012: AAA: Lake Braddock d Kellam 4-0. Lake Braddock lost to West Springfield in the regional title game but then blitzed to a state championship.

2011: AAA: Great Bridge d South County in the state final, giving the powerful South County its first and only loss on the season after starting the season 28-0.  Lake Braddock was the regional finalist and lost to Great Bridge in the state quarters.

2010: AAA: West Springfield d Woodbridge in the final, giving Woodbridge its only loss on the year. WT Woodson regional finalist.

Complete history of Virginia HS Champions: from VHSL’s website.  Covers all sports and has results for a century.  Lots of fun to dig through.

Maryland

Here’s the state finals results in Maryland.  Brackets here at the MPSAA website.

A quick list of past Maryland State champions by division past what we have here.

The Maryland public high school seasons are now complete.

 

DC Public Schools/DCIAA:

Private Leagues: WCAC/MAC/IAC and VISAA/Maryland Private

All local area Private schools’ seasons are now complete.

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.

Gatorade announced their player of the year awards on 5/24/16.  (Link to all Gatorade/USA Today players of the year per state)

  • Maryland: Spalding’s Tyler Blohm won the Maryland award.  Committed to Maryland.
  • Washington DC: St. John’s Cam Remalia (by way of Waldorf, MD) won the DC award.  Committed (per PG) to Coastal Carolina.
  • Virginia: Flint Hill’s Khalil Lee won the Virginia award.  Committed to Liberty but likely to get drafted early.

Pending Awards to be announced/expected later this spring:

  • VISAA’s All-State teams, Division I, Division II and Division III.   Khalil Lee (Flint  Hill) is the Division 1 player of the year.  Harry Brown (Greenbrier Christian) is Division II player of the year.  Andrew Lowe (Southampton Academy) is Division III player of the year
  • Washington Post All-Met teams: have been selected (by virtue of all the twitter shout-outs I’ve seen) but not yet published.  Meanwhile, here’s a fantastic list of all All-Met teams in all sports going back to 1991 that i’m spinning into a “where are they now” post to be done sometime in the future.
  • NovaBaseballMagazine.com has selected All conference teams for all the Northern Virginia-based conferences; click on the “Standings” link from their home page, navigate down to the division in question, and you’ll get the final 2016 conference standings, then the results of the conference tournament, and the all conference team.
  • Louisville Slugger All-Americans: tba 6/12/16 eta
  • USA Today All-Americans: tba 6/10/16 eta
  • Baseball America All-Americans:
  • The Baltimore Sun’s All-Metro Team
  • Richmond Times-Dispatch All-Richmond team (if exists)
  • Virginian Pilot All-tidewater team (if exists)
  • Virginia All 6-A North Regional team: Jake Agnos, LHP Battlefield is the Pitcher of the year, Jared DiCesare, Chantilly is the Player of the year.
  • Other Virginia All-Regional teams: pending
  • VHSL All-State Teams: pending release
  • Maryland MIAA All-State teams (if exists)

My master list of links used to cover HS Baseball:

Local and National High School Baseball Ranking Lists: Updated for 5/23/16 in most cases.

  • Washington Post All Met Sports Area top-10 ranking: Madison maintained #1 ranking most of the season but now Chantilly & Battlefield will lay claim.
  • NovaBaseballMagazine.com Rankings: Madison and Chantilly have dominated the rankings all year, Battlefield & Marshall there too.
  • PrepBaseballReport maintains a VA State-Wide Power25 Rankings: Greenbrier Christian, Hanover, Liberty Christian leading the way.
  • Baltimore Sun Top-10 Poll Archives: Perennial power Spalding has been at the top for a good chunk of the season.  Chesapeake, Severna Park.
  • The Virginian Pilot Top-10 for Hampton Roads area: Private school powerhouse Greenbrier Christian, Grassfield and one-loss First Colonial have led the way most of the year.
  • Richmond times-Dispatch Richmond-Area top-10: perennial 4-A power Hanover leads the way.
  • UsaToday’s National High School “Expert” Rankings 5/25/16: Hanover comes in at #16, Spalding at #21.
  • USAtoday’s National “Computer” Rankings 5/25/16: Just Hanover at #21.
  • Baseball America Top 25: No local teams ranked.  Madison was in the pre-season list but quickly dropped out with its early season tourney losses.
  • MaxPreps “Excellent 25” ranking: No local teams listed. Madison started #11
  • MaxPreps “Excellent 50” rankings: No local teams listed.
  • MaxPreps All-Virginia Rankings: Hanover, Grassfield 1-2, then 4-A Jamestown (maybe a bit high), then the two big private schools Greenbrier Christian and Liberty Christian.  Highest ranked 5-A team is Mountain View, so there’s your 6A/5A/4A favorites.

These National rankings are dominated by teams in Texas, Florida and California, as you might expect.  These teams can play nearly 40 games and usually have at least 15-20 under their belts before DC/MD/VA teams even get going.  So its somewhat of an accomplishment just to have a local team get some recognition.  In fact, any cold-weather state team appearing in these lists is pretty special.

Major Newspaper Links/Resources for following prep baseball around the state

  • Washington Post’s AllMetSports section with standings and schedule results.
  • The Baltimore Sun’s high school page has information on some of the programs outside the DC area mentioned in the Maryland section
  • InsideNova.com‘s coverage of high school sports, but has put limits on the number of stories you can read.
  • Richmond Times-Dispatch has a HS scoreboard.
  • Hampton Roads Pilot (Hampton Roads) has scores for teams in the Chesapeake/Norfolk/Va Beach area.
  • NovaBaseballMagazine: great coverage of Prep baseball in NorthernVirginia (thanks to Joe Antonellis for the heads up on this great new resource).

Local Newspaper Coverage, including links to many local papers covering smaller jurisdictions.

Non-newspaper Links for Local and National Prep Baseball Coverage

Good Twitter accounts to follow:

  • https://twitter.com/toddeboss/lists/prepbaseball: I maintain an open list at my twitter account via this link, which contains direct links to dozens of local resources (including all the below).  Way too many retweets from the travel team accounts especially, but its a good way to keep up with local ball.
  • https://twitter.com/PBRVirginiaDC: Prep Baseball Report VA/DC coverage
  • https://twitter.com/NVBaseballMag: NoVa Baseball Magazine
  • https://twitter.com/NoVAHSBB
  • https://twitter.com/DynamicBaseball

 

Written by Todd Boss

June 5th, 2016 at 11:31 am

Posted in Local Baseball

Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

CWS 2016: Field fo 64 announced with Regional predictions

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Its that time of year again; Its College Baseball playoff season!

On 5/29/16, a day before the entire field was announced, the 16 Regional hosts were announced.  These are also the top 16 seeds (though they only acknowledge the top 8 “national seeds”).  The following day, the entire field was announced.  Here’s a look at the 16 regional tournaments with some quickie thoughts.

Each of these 4-team sets is listed in the “seed” in the regional, starting with the host:

1. Florida, Georgia Tech, UConn, Bethune-Cookman: hard to see the #1 overall seed and presumptive favorite all year lose at this stage.
16. Florida State, Southern Miss, South Alabama, Alabama State: Some think there’s an upset possible here, since both Southern Miss and South Alabama are tough; I still think Fla State can power its way through here.

If seeds hold, Florida meets Florida State for a fun intra-state tourney.  They’ve played three mid-week games this season with Florida sweeping them all, so odds are that Florida is making Omaha.

2. Louisville, Ohio State, Wright State, Western Michigan: Ohio State as your 2-seed isn’t scaring anyone.
15. Vanderbilt, UC Santa Barbara, Washington, Xavier: Not really much of a challenge for Vanderbilt in this regional; not even another top-25 team.

If seeds hold, yet another intra-state repeat super-regional matchup between these two teams, and a pretty tough draw for Louisville if it happens.  Vanderbilt is better than a #15 seed and this match-up seems like its forced to save a few dollars in travel costs; both of these teams are legitimate Omaha threats, with Vanderbilt having made the final in both of the last two seasons.

3. Miami, Florida Atlantic, Long Beach State, Stetson: Miami and Florida Atlantic split a couple of mid-week games; they have a dangerous Long Beach State as a #3 seed.  tough regional.
14. Ole Miss, Tulane, Boston College, Utah: Ole Miss will have its hands full with Tulane but should advance.

If seeds hold, Ole Miss gets a tough assignment going to Miami, but Miami should prevail.

4. Texas A&M, Minnesota, Wake Forest, Binghamton: wow, Minnesota as your #2 seed?  Tough regional you laid out there for TAMU this year.
13. TCU, Arizona State, Gonzaga, Orel Roberts: I don’t trust any of the Pac-12 teams this year; TCU should prevail.

If seeds hold, yet another manufactured super regional of local teams.  They didn’t play mid-week this season.  This could be a good series; some think TAMU is the beat team in the land.

5. Texas Tech, Dallas Baptist, New Mexico, Fairfield: shouldn’t be too tough for newcomer Texas Tech.
12. UVA, Bryant, ECU, William & Mary: well, UVA got kind of short changed here; Bryant isn’t tough but ECU can be.  They can’t be happy about seeing in-state rival W&M either.  They dodged a bullet with a weaker #2 seed though.

If seeds hold, Texas Tech-UVA is super close; they’re #6 and #7 in d1baseball’s latest poll.  I know nothing of Texas Tech but know UVA has played great as of late, has two 1st round talents and could be a tough out.

6. Mississippi State, Cal-State Fullerton, Louisiana Tech, Southeast Missouri State; Mississippi State should cruise here: Fullerton looks tough on paper but can come up short in the playoffs.
11. Louisiana-Lafayette, Arizona, Sam Houston State, Princeton: some upset potential here if you trust any Pac-12 teams.

If seeds hold, hard to see Mississippi State (ranked #3 in d1baseball’s latest poll) losing.

7. Clemson, Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Western Carolina: Clemson will be favored but will struggle with OK State.
10. South Carolina, UNC-Wilmington, Duke, Rhode Island; tough regional for South Carolina; Duke is no slouch and Wilmington is tough.

If seeds hold (and sensing a pattern here), another intra-state superregional.  Clemson-South Carolina would be fun.

8. LSU, Rice, Southeastern LA, Utah Valley: hard to see LSU getting stressed here: Rice always underperforms in the post-season.
9. NC State, Coastal Carolina, St. Marys, Navy: tough blow for Coastal, which apparently went from just missing being a regional host to having to travel to tough ACC competitor NC State.  Meanwhile, NC State probably has the hardest regional of them all, with Navy’s pre-season all-american Luke Gillingham set to go in game 1.

If seeds hold, LSU-NC State could be a barn burner.

Easiest Regionals: I’d go with TAMU, Florida, Louisville.

Hardest Regionals: NC State, South Carolina, UVA.

My Omaha predictions right now: Florida, Louisville, Miami, TAMU, UVA, Mississippi State, South Carolina, LSU.  A lot of chalk there.

Snubs

North Carolina.  A top 20 team by RPI but yet again finishes with a sub-par, sub-.500 record in ACC play and gets left out.  10 other ACC teams made the tournament, making college baseball more and more of an ACC-SEC affair, but not having a top 20 team by the same RPI factors that clearly drove both the regional host selections and the at-large teams really is kind of hypocritical.  Why not just tell teams at the beginning of the year, “if you don’t finish .500 in conference play you will not be selected.”

The college podcasts listed a few other snubs like Kent State and PAC-12 teams Oregon and/or Oregon State, but for me it starts and ends with UNC.

Marquee Draft-related players to watch

I won’t go through all 64 teams, but here’s some of the more interesting names to keep an eye on:

  • #1 Florida has likely #1 overall pick A.J. Puk, but their “other” Ace starter Logan Shore is also a likely 1st or 2nd round pick.  Also a likely high pick is OF Buddy Reed.
  • #2 seed Louisville is led by likely top-5 pick Corey Ray and has two big arms you’ll hear mentioned on draft day (Zach Burdi and Kyle Funkhouser).
  • Miami’s Zach Collins is probably the first catcher off the board.
  • UVA is led by Conner Jones and Matt Thaiss, both likely 1st rounders.
  • Mississippi State’s ace is Dakota Hudson, likely the 2nd or 3rd college arm drafted.
  • Vanderbilt is led by 1st rounder Jordan Sheffield and in the field by likely 2nd rounder Bryan Reynolds.
  • Boston College’s staff is led by likely 1st rounder Justin Dunn.
  • Wake Forest’s Will Craig is one of the top sluggers in the nation, on the leader boards for both average and home runs.
  • UConn’s Anthony Kay will make life difficult for Florida if he is saved for the winner’s bracket game.

Other News

After Texas failed to make the tourney, their long-time coach and noted arm-shredder Augie Garrido stepped down to take an administrative job.

College CWS tournament references:

 

Written by Todd Boss

June 2nd, 2016 at 12:24 pm

Posted in College/CWS,Draft

Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

College draft-prospects with local-ties to keep an eye in for the 2016 draft

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UVA's Connor Jones is a likely first rounder in this year's draft. Photo via UVA sports

UVA’s Connor Jones is a likely first rounder in this year’s draft. Photo via UVA sports

For the fourth year running (here’s 2013’s wrap-up, 2014’s wrap-up, and 2015’s wrap-up), we’re going to keep an eye on “local” draft prospects leading up to the 2016 amateur draft.  By “local” I essentially mean anyone who hails from the DC/MD/VA areas plus anyone who is playing their college ball in the DC/MD/VA irrespective of where they hail from.

Here’s a list of DC/MD/VA college players draft-eligible in 2016 of note from our area.  We’re now to the point where HS seniors we covered previously in this blog are becoming college Junior draft eligibles; here’s our 2013 draft wrap up mentioning a number of these 2016 draft eligible players.

Major Local College Draft Prospects for 2016

These are the big-time names that we’ve been hearing may be 1st or 2nd rounders this year with Local Ties.

  • Connor Jones, UVA RHP via Great Bridge; a 1st round talent in 2013 who desired to go to college and he hasn’t disappointed; took over as the Friday starter by mid 2015, finished with a 7-2 record and a 2.96 ERA in 16 starts.  Pitched well in the CWS, getting an unlucky loss against Vanderbilt in the final.  Playing in the Cape Cod league this summer, on the 2015 Collegiate National team and on the MLB.com 2016 draft short list already.  Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 2nd team All-American.
  • Mike Shawaryn: RHP for Maryland; went 13-2 with a 1.71 ERA as Maryland’s friday starter as a sophomore.  He was named to Baseball America’s 2nd team All America in 2015.  2015 Collegiate National team.  He could be a very high draft prospect as a junior.  Didn’t pitch well for Team USA in summer 2015.  Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 1st team All-American.
  • Matt Thaiss, UVA C who led the team in hitting as a sophomore and is on the 2015 National Collegiate team.  Impressed while playing for Team USA in summer of 2015, with a top-2 round projection.  Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 3rd team All-American.
  • Buddy Reed, OF from Florida via Finksburg, MD (NW of Baltimore).  Not previously on the radar list despite hailing from Maryland b/c he attended a prep school in Rhode Island.  But he’s playing for Florida and is on the 2015 National Collegiate team.  Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 1st team All-American.
  • Errol Robinson, SS from Ole Miss via St. Johns Prep in DC: hit .297 and started every game for Ole Miss as a sophomore.  Getting a lot of attention in his junior year, with Ole Miss’ high national ranking and the general dearth of capable shortstops.

Other Local College draft eligibles w/ Local Ties

Some of these guys will get drafted, others may not.  But they’re all draft eligible, having gone to 4-yr programs 3 years ago.

  • Luke Gillingham a senior at Navy who was named Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 2nd team All-American.  There’s some history of Navy grads making the majors, including Mitch Harris and Oliver Drake in 2015.
  • Charlie Gould, a rising Sr at William & Mary.  Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 3rd team All-American, pre-season all-CAA.
  • Michael Morman, a 5th year senior/grad student at Richmond.  Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 3rd team All-American.
  • Daniel Pinero, UVA middle infielder who started 60 games and hit .300 as a sophomore.
  • Alec Bettinger, UVA RHP via Hylton: 50ip and 4 mid-week starts as a sophomore, could take a bigger role with the graduation/drafting of so many UVA arms in 2015.
  • Jack Roberts, UVA RHP via James River HS: struggled to a 6.08 ERA in 23 innings as a sophomore.
  • Andy McGuire, RHP from Texas via Madison HS: converted to middle relief at Texas, had 12 IP in 13 appearances in 2015, but does not appear to be on the Texas roster in 2016.  No idea where he is now.
  • Thomas Rogers, LHP from VCU via Lake Braddock: Initially went to UNC, transferred to VCU in the fall of 2014 and sat out 2015 per NCAA transfer rules.  Will be a draft eligible sophomore.
  • Tyler Ramirez, OF from UNC via Suffolk VA (Cape Henry Collegiate).  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
  • Aaron McGarity, RHP from Virginia Tech (home town also Blacksburg).  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015 and made the All-Star team; prospects looking up.
  • Andre Scrubb, RHP from High Point U by way of Woodbridge VA (Hylton HS).  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
  • Luke Scherzer, RHP from Virginia Tech by way of Midlothian VA (Powhatan HS).  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
  • Nick Walker, OF from Old Dominion by way of Chesapeake VA (Kellahm HS).    Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
  • Kit Sheetz, LHP Virginia Tech by way of Midlothian VA (James River HS).  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.  Not sure he’s actually still at Va Tech; missing from 2016 roster.
  • David Ellingson, RHP from Georgetown U.  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
  • Andrew Yacyk, inf from Liberty U via Hagerstown.  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
  • Andrew Knizner, C from NC State via Glen Allen, VA (Hanover HS).  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
  • Nick Cieri, C/IB from U Maryland, played in Cape Cod league and made the all star team.
  • Logan Farrar OF/2B from VCU
  • Parker Bean, RHP/OF from Liberty
  • Zack Rice: OF from UNC via Suffolk HS in Norfolk: converted to pitching at UNC: had a 2.31 ERA in 20 appearances in 2015.
  • Bryce Harman, jr 1B from ECU via Chesterfield, VA (Lloyd C. Bird HS).  Huge power potential but 1B-only guy, still projects as top 5-10 rounds in 2016.
  • Garrett Brooks, sr OF (CF) from ECU via Chesapeake VA (Western Branch).  Could be a classic round 6-10 senior sign this coming spring as a capable player who struggled early but is coming on late.
  • Luke Bolka, jr LHP from ECU via Mechanicsville, VA (Atlee HS).  Drafted late out of HS, has big K/9 numbers in small sample sizes and could easily feature as a matchup lefty reliever.
  • Mac Caples, jr OF from Virginia Tech by way of Midlothian VA (James River HS).

Sources used to kick off this post (which I started the day after the 2015 draft and update through out the 2015 spring awards season and the 2015 summer baseball showcase season):

Please let me know if you feel there are draft-eligible players with local ties who I should be following.  I don’t want to leave anyone out!

 

Written by Todd Boss

March 30th, 2016 at 12:11 pm

Posted in College/CWS,Draft,Local Baseball

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College Baseball Kickoff – Opening Weekend review and some pre-season ranking lists

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UVA's Connor Jones kicked off this year with a gem. Photo via UVA sports

UVA’s Connor Jones kicked off this year with a gem. Photo via UVA sports

Welcome to the 2016 College Baseball Season!  Despite there still being snow on the ground here,  D1 programs all over the country played their first series this past weekend.

I know; I’m one of the few guys out there (at least in DC blogger-land) covering the College game.  So i’m ok if you keep moving on.  I probably got really turned onto the College game as I started to really look at the college arms the Nats were drafting, and the focus the Mike Rizzo establishment puts on college players.  Its a very “Billy Beane-esque” strategy; college players have more ABs, more consistent stats and more experience playing against “known quantities” of talent (especially those guys in the top baseball leagues like the SEC and ACC).  Now with two very good local programs (UVA and UMD) and a ton of local guys who i’ve been following long enough to track them from HS draft prospect to College draft prospect, I continue coverage of the College game.

Quick rundown of the top local prospects first weekend in action;

  • UVA’s Connor Jones threw 7 shut-out innings in a UVA win over Kent State.
  • Maryland’s Mike Shawaryn gave up 2 runs on 3 hits in a loss at Alabama
  • UVA’s Matt Thaiss went 6-13 in the kickoff tournament down in Myrtle Beach.
  • Ole Miss’ Error Robinson (a dc-native but quickly rising on the draft boards) went 2-for-7 with 3 walks and 4 runs in a their opening series sweep against FIU.
  • UNC’s J.B. Bukauskas had 9 Ks in 4 2/3’s innings but got a hook after showing some wildness in an eventual UNC loss.

I have a comprehensive post about all DC-area prospects coming, headlined by these four guys but also including all the local prep and college players, which we’ll post once HS season starts up.

Meanwhile, here’s some pre-season top-X lists for the new year: you’re going to see the same 4 teams at the top of every list.  There’s only 5 or so main sites covering the game, so we’ll go back to these blogs and sites constantly.  D1baseball.com and BaseballAmerica.com are the leaders but the other Collegiate Baseball sites are good as well.

  • D1Baseball’s pre-season top 25: Florida, Louisville, TAMU, Vandy, Oregon State.
  • Baseball America’s pre-season top-25: Florida, Louisville, TAMU then surprisingly UVA #4.
  • College Baseball Daily pre-season top 25 from 2/1/16: Louisville #1, TAMU #2, Vanderbilt #3 and Florida #4.  Virginia #8, Maryland #22.
  • College Baseball Central’s pre-season top 25 January 2016: Florida #1, Louisville #2
  • Collegiate Baseball News pre-season top-40 announced in Dec 2015.  Florida #1, Louisville #2, which isn’t surprising since both teams have multiple pre-season first team all-americans on their team.  Local teams mentioned: UVA #9, Maryland #28.
  • NCBWA (National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association)’s pre-season top-30: Florida, Louisville, Vandy and TAMU.

And here’s some pre-season All-America lists.  You’ll recognize a lot of these names if you’ve followed any pre-2016 draft coverage, and this list will eventually comprise a huge percentage of the first round draft this coming June.

  • Collegiate Baseball News announced in Dec 2015 their pre-season All Americans and it contains a whole slew of names in contention for 1-1 in 2016.  A.J. Puk, Alec Hanson, Corey Ray along with other big-time names such as Kyle Funkhouser, Nick Banks.  Maryland’s Mike Shawaryn is a 1st teamer, UVA’s Connor Jones and the Navy’s Luke Gillingham a 2nd-teamer, and Matt Thaiss (UVA), Charley Gould (W&M) and Michael Morman (Richmond) are 3rd teamers.
  • D1Baseball.com’s pre-season all American list: the two aces for local college teams UVA and UMD are listed (Jones and Shawaryn).   UVA’s Thaiss is a 2nd teamer.  D1baseball also has a list of the Top 300 College draft prospects for 2016.
  • BaseballAmerica’s pre-season All American team is here.  No local guys on 1st team, Shawaryn, Jones and Pavin Smith are on the 2nd and 3rd teams.
  • USA Baseball pre-season Golden Spikes watch list: includes most major D1 prospects and local guys Shawaryn, Jones, Thaiss and Gillingham.

A full overview of D1Baseball’s coverage is here.  BaseballAmerica’s College index is here.

 

 

Written by Todd Boss

February 21st, 2016 at 7:45 pm

Posted in College/CWS,Local Baseball

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2015 CWS Finals: Virginia wins!

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WaddellBrandon via 247sports.com

Brandon Waddell pitched the game of his life in the CWS final. Photo via 247sports.com

Here’s a recap of our CWS coverage so far for 2015:

 

Here’s how the Finals played out.

  • In Game One on 6/22/15, UVA’s Connor Jones matched Vanderbilt’s ace Carson Fulmer zero for zero for the first five innings.  However, Vanderbilt got a well-timed opposite field double down the line to plate two and then scored three more, knocking Jones from the game in the 7th to win game one 5-1.  Fulmer was outstanding, holding UVA to just 2  hits through 7 2/3rds innings, leaving with a large lead in his final collegate appearance (he was drafted 8th overall by the White Sox).  Other players of note: #1 overall pick Dansby Swanson finally had a good game, going 2-4 with a run and an RBI.  Nats 3rd rounder Rhett Wiseman struggled; going 0-4 with the hat-track of three punch-outs.
  • In Game Two on 6/23/15, UVA turned to their regular outfielder Adam Haseley in somewhat of a shock, and he threw 5 shut-out innings before handing the ball to the most dominant pitcher this post-season has seen in Josh Sborz, who threw another 4 shutout innings to shore up the win 3-0 and force a game 3.  UVA’s offense was also unexpected; they were powered by their #8 and #9 hitters, the latter of which was walk-on senior Thomas Woodruff, who had a grand total of 67 ABs in his collegiate career.  It was Woodruff’s 2-run bases loaded single that provided the game winning runs.  Amazing.
  • In Game three on 6/24/15, UVA’s Brandon Waddell threw the game of his life, giving up 2 runs early but then shutting down Vanderbilt’s offense for the next six innings en route to a 4-2 win.  Vanderbilt’s Walker Buehler struggled with his control, giving up runs early and getting unceremoniously yanked in his last collegiate appearance.  Nathan Kirby came on to relieve Waddell, who threw 105 pitches on 3 days rest, and blew away Vanderbilt’s hitters in the 8th and 9th for his first (and last) career save.  3B Kenny Towns, a lowly 20th round pick by the Angels, was the game hero, with a very good diving stop to save a run early and a crucial go-ahead RBI late.   But it was freshman 1B Pavin Smith who was the offensive star of the game, clubbing a 2-run homer early to tie the game and deflate Vanderbilt.

UVA wins the first Baseball title for the ACC since 1955, an amazing stat considering the baseball-playing pedigree of the conference.  Super reliever Josh Sborz recieved the MVP award for his CWS work; final tally:  3IP on 6/13, 2IP on 6/15, and 4ip on 6/20, and 4IP on 6/23.  All Scoreless.

UVA completes a pretty amazing season all things considered; they suffered injuries to a number of their key guys, struggled in conference all season and likely only even made the field by virtue of a sweep of UNC in their final ACC season series.  But, for those who thought the final was a fluke based on the seedings of the two teams, consider this: Vanderbilt was the consensus pre-season #1 team by every poll out there, and UVA was either 2nd, 3rd or 4th in those same polls.  So these teams were expected to return to the CWS at the very least … they just to circuitous paths there.

Your 2015 College World Series Champion: The University of Virginia

This concludes the College Baseball season and our coverage of it for 2015.  I have some draft posts about summer leagues and summer travel teams of note for high schoolers that I may dig out again, for those interested.

 

College CWS tournament references:

Written by Todd Boss

June 25th, 2015 at 8:45 am

Posted in College/CWS,Draft,Local Baseball

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CWS Group Winners and CWS Final preview

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Here’s a recap of our CWS coverage so far for 2015:

Lets review the CWS group play.  The CWS plays just one or two games a day; a far cry from the first weekend, where 64 teams played hundreds of games over the course of a long weekend.  So this post has been written in one or two sentence increments for a week and a half…

My pre-CWS predictions were Florida from the top and LSU from the bottom.  Lets see how things turned out.

In the Left Bracket (UVA, Arkansas, #5 Miami and #4 Florida)

  • In the opening games, UVA took out Arkansas 5-3 behind a decent effort from Connor Jones (Great Bridge HS) but an even better effort from 2nd rounder Josh Sborz, who shut down Arkansas for the win.  Both teams’ premier hitters (Andrew Benintendi and Joe McCarthy) hit solo shots during the game.  In the other opener,  Florida destroyed Miami 15-3, knocking out Andrew Suarez after just 3 1/3 innings.
  • In the first elimination game, Miami got two hits in the bottom of the 9th to walk off and eliminate Arkansas 4-3.
  • In the winners bracket game to take control of the group, UVA’s #2 Brandon Waddell pitched perhaps the game of his career, shutting down Florida on just 2 hits for 7 scoreless innings before Sborz got the 2-inning save, giving UVA a 1-0 victory and a surprising (to me) clear path to the CWS finals for the 2nd year in a row.
  • In the play-in game to the group final, Florida jumped all over Miami’s starter, so they brought back Suarez on short rest (which I’m sure his drafting team (San Francisco) was thrilled about), but the game was over early and Florida eliminated Miami 10-2 to setup a rematch with UVA for a berth in the finals.
  • In the group final, UVA’s gambit of throwing ace Nathan Kirby after being side-lined for months backfired; he was hit hard early and UVA’s notional 3rd starters (Alec Bettinger) just couldn’t keep Florida at bay long enough to allow his offense to come back.  Florida wins 10-5 to force a winner-take-all game and wreak havoc on UVA’s pitching matchup strategy.  Luckily for UVA, they have Josh Sborz, who relieved Waddell and threw four shut-out innings, enough to give UVA’s offense time to scrape together the winning run and advance to the CWS final.

Group winner advancing to the CWS finals: UVA

In the Right Bracket (#2 LSU, #7 TCU, #11 Vanderbilt and #14 Cal State-Fullerton)

  • In the opening games, TCU stunned LSU 10-3, with TCU’s ace (and Chicago Cub 8th rounder) Preston Morrison shutting down LSU’s offense.  Nats 2nd rounder Andrew Stevenson was 1-4 with an RBI.   Meanwhile, Cal State – Fullerton got to Vanderbilt ace Carson Fulmer while their own ace (2nd round pick Thomas Eshelman) showed why he’s got 80 command, throwing 5+ scoreless, walk-less innings before weather forced the suspension of the opener.  Luckily for Vanderbilt, the rest of CSF’s staff wasn’t as effective, and Vanderbilt got a 4-3 walk-off win.
  • In the first elimination game, LSU’s Alex Lange pitched a complete game to defeat Cal State-Fullerton and eliminate them from the CWS.
  • In the winners bracket game to take control of the group, Vanderbilt’s clean-up hitter Zander Weil hit a solo homer in the 7th to provide the only offense of the night as Vanderbilt beat TCU 1-0 to take control of the group and make it seem more and more likely of a CWS rematch.
  • In the play-in game to the group final, TCU punished LSU’s bullpen and took an easy 8-4 win to eliminate the highest seed in the CWS and force a rematch with Vanderbilt for a spot in the CWS final. 
  • In the group final, Vanderbilt threw their 1st rounder Walker Buehler for the first time in 3 weeks and he was sparkling; he pitched into the 7th, allowing just 4 hits.  Meanwhile Nats 3rd round pick Rhett Wiseman, after taking a ball to the neck in the 1st, absolutely crushed a homer to put the game out of reach for Vanderbilt, who go on to win 7-1 and advance.

Group winner advancing to the CWS finals: #11 seed Vanderbilt.

CWS finals discussion: Games 1,2,3 set for 6/22-6/24/15.  Vanderbilt’s pitching staff for the CWS final looks like this:

  • Ace Fulmer threw 6 innings and 104pitches on 6/14/15.   He’ll be on 7 days rest for game 1.
  • #3 Philip Pfeifer threw 7 innings and 112 pitches on 6/16/15.  He’ll be on 6 days rest for game 2.
  • #2 Buehler, who threw 6 2/3rds innings on 6/19/15 would be on 4 days rest for a decider on 6/24/15, normal rest for a pro but a little short for a college guy.  Otherwise, some-time starter John Kilichowski, who threw 2+ in both the 2nd and 3rd games of the CWS group play, could be available depending his usage in the first two games.

Meanwhile, UVA’s pitching staff is in trouble.  Here’s where they stand:

Sborz meanwhile threw multiple innings in each group win: 3IP on 6/13, 2IP on 6/15, and 4ip on 6/20.   And all of those were very high leverage innings, with UVA either tied or clinging to a small lead.  UVA almost has to consider throwing one of its mid-week starters in Game 2.  That would give them Kirby on 4 days rest in the final, to be relieved by Waddell on 3 days rest.  You just can’t take a guy who hasn’t thrown in months and then pitch him back to back on the shortest rest of his life.

You have to like the way the CWS lines up for Vanderbilt’s staff.  Jones wasn’t exactly overpowering against Arkansas in his start (3 runs in 6ip) and Vanderbilt’s got a better offense.

I’m note quite sure how Vanderbilt slipped to an #11 seed in this tournament, given the talent and leadership on their squad.   It is worth noting they had no less than nine draftees in the 2015 draft; 3 first rounders (1st, 8th and 24th overall), 2 third rounders and a 6th of note.  That’s a ton of talent.  You have to think they’re the favorites in the final to repeat.

Prediction: Vanderbilt in 2.

 

College CWS tournament references:

Written by Todd Boss

June 22nd, 2015 at 9:26 am

Posted in College/CWS,Draft

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