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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

Tagged with , , , , ,

Prep Baseball Update #2 2017: Maryland State Champs, Virginia Regional Champs crowned

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Update #2 for DC/MD/VA Prep baseball for 2017.

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

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

Text in Red are pending results, which we’ll pick up in the next post in this series.

All Virginia regional finals were played on 6/2/17; here’s the scoreboard with all results.  Winner highlighted in bold red.

Virginia

Here are the Virginia Conference champions, regular season and tournament.  All these playoff brackets, if they exist, are at this link at VHSL.  I won’t re-link all the playoff brackets per district/region below.

6-A North Regional  Conference Tournament Results: 

  • 6-A Conference 5/Concorde: Oakton beat Westfield
  • 6-A Conference 6/Liberty: Madison squeaked by Langley
  • 6-A Conference 7/Potomac: West Springfield blanked South County
  • 6-A Conference 8/ Cedar Run: Patriot cruised to the district title over Osborne Park

Regional Tournament Results: The four expected #1 seeds advanced easily in the first round of the Regional tournament; Oakton, Madison, West Springfield and Patriot.  In the regional quarters, all four #1 seeds advanced again; Madison advanced easily over Lake Braddock 6-0, Oakton advanced over Battlefield 5-3, West Springfield easily handled Westfield 9-2, and Patriot downed Robinson 1-0 on a walk-off homer.   The regional semi-finals on 5/30/17 were both interrupted by a massive storm that moved through and were completed on 5/31/17.  In those regional semis, Oakton walked-off with a Sac Fly in the bottom of the 7th to top Madison 3-2 while Patriot held off West Springfield 4-3 to punch their tickets to the State tourney.  The Madison/Oakton game was a rematch of an earlier game this season, easily won by Madison, so that result was surprising.  Patriot over West Springfield was more expected, given Patriot’s traditional strength.

Regional Final: Oakton got a n extra-innings, 2-run walk-off homer  from Junior Eric Lingenbach to take the 6A regional title from Patriot 3-2.

 

6-A South Region: mostly covering Richmond, Roanoke and Virginia Beach area.  But there are just enough schools in Woodbridge proper to form a 6-A conference closer to DC with teams that are typically considered for All-Met rankings.   Unlike 6A-North, just the top two teams from each district make the Regional tournament.  Thus, the district tournaments here are lagging the district tournaments for the North region, which finished before theirs even began.

VHSL bracket link here.  Direct link to Tide-water area tourney schedules at Pilot Online.    Direct link to Richmond area tourney schedules at the Times-Dispatch.

  • 6-A Conference 1/Coastal: Cox defeated Kellam in a battle of Va Beach heavy-weights.
  • 6-A Conference 2/Monitor Merrimac: Western Branch beat Oscar Smith in an upset-filled district tourney where top-ranked Granby and Woodside were upset early.
  • 6-A Conference 3: Manchester d Thomas Dale in a district tourney that went chalk.
  • 6-A Conference 4: Woodbridge d Colonial Forge 12-11 in a barn burner.

Regional Results: all four district champs won their quarter final matchups, with Cox having the easiest time of it.   In the Semis, Cox beat Manchester 3-2 and Western Branch handled Woodbridge 5-3. 

Region Final:  Cox rallies to defeat Western Branch 4-3.

5-A North Region:

Conference winners:

  • 5-A Conference 13/Capitol: Marshall
  • 5-A Conference 14: Briar Woods
  • 5-A Conference 15: Potomac
  • 5-A Conference 16: Halifax

Regional Results: (5-a Regional bracket): There were some small upsets in the play-in games in the first round of the 5A North regional; an under-seeded Stafford fell to Stone Bridge (despite finishing the regular season 19-2) and#3 Seed Atlee easily beat #2 seed Wakefield.  The other #2 seeds (Orange and North Stafford) advanced as expected to face the #1 seeds in the quarters.  Stone Bridge faces one of the best teams in the state in Halifax, whose #1 starter (Andrew Abbott) has a ridiculous 133/3 K/BB ratio this spring and is UVA bound (h/t NovaBaseballMagazine.com).  In the quarters, #1 seeds Briar Woods, Potomac and Halifax all advanced, while North Stafford blanked Marshall to advance to the semis.  In the Semis, Briar Woods thrashed Potomac 8-1 while Halifax held off the surprising North Stafford team 2-1 in 12 innings.

Region Final: Briar Woods destroyed top 5-A team Halifax 10-0 to continue a surprising run in the post-season (they weren’t even the #1 seed in their own district).

 

5-A South Region

  • 5-A Conference 9/Atlantic: Kempsville d Hickory.
  • 5-A Conference 10/PenSouth: Menchville d Clouchester.
  • 5-A Conference 11: Deep Run d Mills Goodwin.
  • 5-A Conference 12: Prince George d Matoaca.

Quick predictions for 5-A south regional tourney: Prince George at 19-1 and Hickory are good bets to advance

Regional Results: as with the 6A-South tourney, all four district champs held serve in the quarter finals, mostly with ease.  In the Semis, Prince George and Menchville advanced, with the Menchville pitcher throwing a no-hitter to add insult to injury.

Region Final: Prince George continued 5A dominance, topping Menchville 13-5.

Smaller Virginia Classifications

4-A West:

  • 4-A Conference 21 East/A: Heritage upset #1 seed Loudoun Valley then #2 Seed Loudoun County to win the district.  Heritage and Loudoun County to regionals.
  • 4-A Conference 21 West/B: Harrisonburg beat Sherando in a 2/1 seed upset to advance to regionals.
  • 4-A Conference 22: Kettle Run easily won the region over Freedom to advance as the 4A North #1 seed with an unblemished 19-0 record.

4A Regionals preview: (bracket here): Kettle Run and Liberty Christian Academy look like they’re destined to meet in the 4A West regional final.  In the tournament though, Kettle Run was upset early by Lynchburg’s EC Glass.  Liberty Christian won on a walkoff, and they are joined by Harrisonburg and Freedom-South Riding (which recently dropped down from 5A).  The semis were a contrast in styles, as LCA won 1-0 over Freedom-South Riding while Harrisonburg topped EC Glass by a football-score of 14-13.

In the 4A regional final, Liberty Christian won another squeaker, topping Harrisonburg 1-0, validating their move to compete in the public schools VHSL.

4-A East (Bracket here)

Preview: I’d say that the two best teams here are Great Bridge (which has great baseball history as of late and just dropped down from 5A) and Hanover (which won the old AAA title just before reclassification and can easily compete with 5A and 6A schools).  In the 4A East quarters, Great Bridge, Dinwiddie, Hanover and Jamestown all advanced to the semis.  There, the expected wins for Hanover and Great Bridge occurred, setting up a great regional final (thought it took Hanover 13 innings to top Jamestown.

In the 4A East final, Hanover held on to top Great Bridge 4-3 in a battle of two of Virginia’s top high schools irrespective of division.  This matchup, coincidentally was the 2013 State Final just prior to going to 6 divisions.

3A West: Turner Ashby blanked Brookville 4-0 in the Regional final.

3A East: Riverside beat Spotsylvania in the final 9-6.  Riverside is in Ashburn and is coached by the former Stone Bridge coach Sam Plank, fyi.

Lower Divisions 2A and 1A features teams from the smaller areas of Virginia and we won’t bother covering them this year.  IF you want to see their regional and state brackets, visit the VHSL site above.

Maryland

Here’s the 2017 state finals results in Maryland, played over the 5/26/17 weekend.  Brackets here at the MPSAA website.

A quick list of past Maryland State champions by division:

The Maryland public high school seasons are now complete.

DC Public Schools/DCIAA:

  • DCIAA: (2017 playoff bracket): Wilson defeated School Without Walls 7-4 to take the DCIAA title and continue its ridiculous winning streak within DC public school competition.
  • DCSAA: (2017 Playoff Bracket): Gonzaga beat Wilson 9-1 to win the DCSAA baseball title (Wilson upset St. Albans to make the final).

DC public (and private) High school seasons are now complete.

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

State-level Private School tourneys:

  • MIAA: Regular Season: Calvert Hall, Spalding and Gilman were the class of the MIAA Class A all  year.  Boys Latin takes the Class B regular season title while St. Johns Catholic is again the Class C regular season title winner.   Loyola Blakefield came out of nowhere to beat Calvert Hall in the MIAA-A playoffs (their first title in 71 years), having just a .500 record during the season.  Boy’s Latin beat Severn to take the MIAA-B final.  St. Johns Catholic ended up beating Gerstell Academy 5-0 to win its 4th straight MIAA-C title.
  • VISAA: The VISAA playoff brackets show the top 8 private schools in each Virginia division.  In Division I; DC local schools Paul VI and Potomac School were upset early, with #3 seed Benedictine taking the VISAA Division I title.  The Miller School took the Division II title with defending champ Greenbrier Christian getting upset in the first round.  Southampton Academy repeated as VISSA Division III titleists.
  • Maryland Private School “Governor’s Flag” Tournament: tbd.  Draws are here. Only seems like there’s 4 teams for 2017: DeMatha, Spalding, McNamara and Avalon.  I’d guess this would be a cake-walk for Spalding.

DC-area Private School Leagues

Of note, Maryland baseball factory Riverdale Baptist won their 4th straight NACA National Championship, finished the year 30-1 and nationally ranked in every publication that attempts to rank national high schools.

All 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’ll put these in as they publish, but we won’t expect most of these until the end of June.

Gatorade announced their player of the year awards on 5/29/17:

  • Maryland: Harold Cortijo, RHP/OF from Riverdale Baptist.  Committed to play at Seminole State U.
  • Washington DC: Jack Roberts, RHP/SS from St. Johns.  Committed to play at Elon.
  • Virginia: Andrew Abbott, LHP from Halifax County HS.  Committed to play for UVA.

Pending Awards to be announced/expected later this spring:

  • Louisville Slugger All-Americans: pending
  • Washington Post All-Met teams: pending
  • The Baltimore Sun’s All-Metro Team: pending
  • Richmond Times-Dispatch All-Richmond team (if exists): pending
  • Virginian Pilot All-tidewater team (if exists): pending
  • Virginia All 6-A North Regional team: Langley’s Danny Hosley is player of the year (no PG profile/unknown college commit).  Madison’s Jake Nielsen pitcher of the year (a Junior w/o a current college commitment).
  • Virginia All 5-A North Regional team: pending
  • Other Virginia All-Regional teams: pending
  • Northern Virginia All-District teams: Available at this link at Novabaseballmagazine.com, thanks to Joey Kamide for all his hard work.
  • VHSL All-State Teams: pending
  • VISAA’s All-State teams:
    • Division I All State Team with several Paul VI and Flint Hill players.  Player of the Year: Evan Justice– Collegiate School, a LHP from Richmond committed to NC State.
    • Division II All State Team.  Player of the year: Ethan Murray– Miller School, a Junior SS/RHP who sports a 4.0 and is an early commit to Duke.
    • Division III All State Team.   Player of the Year: Carter Davis– Blessed Sacrament-Huguenot, a C from Powhattan committed to St. Andrews Presbyterian College.
  • Maryland MIAA All-State teams (if exists): pending
  • All WCAC 2017: Jack Roberts, RHP/SS from St. Johns player of the year.
  • All MAC 2017 and all IAC 2017 also at Novabaseballmagazine.com’s site.

My master list of links used to cover HS Baseball:

Local and National High School Baseball Ranking Lists:

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, 2017 at 9:43 am

Posted in Local Baseball

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

Prep Baseball Update #2 2016: Private, DC, Maryland State Champs, Northern VA District Champs crowned

7 comments

This is post #2 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 (this post).  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, DC Tourneys.  Covers: VA regional results, State brackets, DC tourney results.  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.

Lets see where we stand now after the Memorial Day weekend and a slew of tournament results.

Text in Red are pending results, which we’ll pick up in the next post in this series.

Virginia

Here are the Virginia Conference champions, regular season and tournament.  All these playoff brackets, if they exist, are at this link at VHSL.  I won’t re-link all the playoff brackets per district/region below.

6-A North Region

  • 6-A Conference 5/Concorde: Regular season champ Chantilly won two close games to also take the District title.  Centreville scored the minor #3 over #2 upset to take the 2nd seed from this district.
  • 6-A Conference 6/Liberty: Regular season champ Madison won a 1-0 squeaker over #2 seed McLean in the district final.
  • 6-A Conference 7/Potomac: Lake Braddock routed #1 seed West Springfield and #3 seed Annandale en route to the district title. 
  • 6-A Conference 8/Cedar Run: Regular season champ Battlefield won both its playoff games 2-1 to take the District title.

6-A North Regional Qualifiers (in seed order).  Here’s the 6-A North bracket.  Play begins 5/25/16.

  • 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.

Quick predictions for 6-A North regional tourney: In an unlucky break for both teams, Madison and Battlefield are set to meet in the Regional semis on 5/31/16 by virtue of being on the same side of the draw.  Defending regional champ Chantilly has a tough 2nd round matchup with McLean, while the powerful Lake Braddock team has a seemingly easier path to the Regional semis.  Its hard not to predict all four #1 seeds from advancing at this point; we’re marking our calendars for a potentially great Madison-Battlefield matchup (presumably with their ace Jake Agnos going) on 5/31.

6-A North Regional Tournament Results: As of this posting: Only one small 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.

Semis on 5/31/16 and Finals (set for 6/3/16) pending.

6-A South Region: which is mostly big-time schools in Richmond, Roanoke and Virginia Beach area.  But there are just enough schools in Woodbridge proper to form a 6-A conference closer to DC with teams that are typically considered for All-Met rankings.   Unlike 6A-North, just the top two teams from each district make the Regional tournament.  Thus, the district tournaments here are lagging the district tournaments for the North region, which finished before theirs even began.

In an interesting configuration, the winners of 6A Conference 1 and 5A conference 9 will play a championship game, so on the VHSL site they’re in the same bracket.

Direct link to Tide-water area tourney schedules at Pilot Online.    Direct link to Richmond area tourney schedules at the Times-Dispatch.

  • 6-A Conference 1/Coastal: First Colonial and Kellam (two perennial power houses) are the top seeds, but the tourney is at host Kellam so we’ll see who wins out.  In the tourney though, Kellam was upset with First Colonial and #3 seed Ocean Lakes facing off.  There, Ocean Lakes upset perhaps the state’s best team in a 9-inning affair (but First Colonial is still the #1 seed).
  • 6-A Conference 2/Monitor Merrimac: As with last year, Western Branch and Grassfield are the top seeds and advanced to the title game, but Grassfield came out on top 6-1.
  • 6-A Conference 3: Manchester and Cosby 1/2 seeds.  In the regional final seeds held and Manchester took the District title 6-5.
  • 6-A Conference 4: Colonial Forge is the regular season champ.  Seeds hold in the district tourney with Colonial Forge beating Hylton in the tourney final 3-0.

6-A South Regional Qualifiers: Games set for 5/30-6/3.

  • 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

Quick predictions for 6-A South regional tourney: to come in the next update once we know who has qualified.  Early thoughts are on Colonial Forge, First Colonial and the conference 2 powerhouses Western Branch and Grassfield.  Grassfield’s chances may depend on the timing of their Ace Grant Garrett Stallings and which game he throws.

5-A North Region:

  • 5-A Conference 13/Capitol: Regular season champ Marshall squeaked through the district tournament, winning the final over #3 seed Edison.
  • 5-A Conference 14: Regular Season champ (and defending State champ) Stone Bridge was upset in the District final by Briar Woods (though Briar Woods probably was the better team by overall record).  Tuscarora easily handled Broad Run to capture the final regional slot.
  • 5-A Conference 15: Regular Season champ Mountain View won two close games to capture the District title.
  • 5-A Conference 16: Regular Season champ Halifax beat 2nd place Atlee in the district title game, with #4 seed Orange capturing the 3rd regional spot.

5-A North Regional Qualifiers (in seed order): 5-A North regional bracket here.  Play begins on 5/24/16.  In a change from last year, the top 3 from each conference qualify for Regionals.

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

Quick predictions for 5-A North regional tourney: I sense that Marshall isn’t nearly as good as its inflated record and that Briar Woods is vulnerable.  We regularly have no idea how good or bad the Southwestern Conference 16 teams are, and this benefits Mountain View (who plays into Halifax if the seeds  hold).  I’ll predict a 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.   Semis and Finals (set for 6/3/16) pending.

5-A South Region

  • 5-A Conference 9/Atlantic: Hickory and Indian River are the top 2 seeds; see above for the weird Conference 1/9 bracket.  Hickory seems to have moved from Conference 10 to 9 for some reason this year; they’re a recent VA state champ and are one to look out for.  The top 2 seeds advanced to the title game, where Indian River prevailed.
  • 5-A Conference 10/PenSouth: Menchville/Nansemond River are the 1/2 seeds.
  • 5-A Conference 11: Mills Godwin and Deep Run are the 1/2 seeds, but #3 seed Glen Allen upset both of them en route to a district title, destroying Mills Godwin in the final 16-3.
  • 5-A Conference 12: Prince George and Matoaca are the 1/2 seeds, and seeds held form in the tourney with Prince George winning out.

5-A South Regional Qualifiers (in seed order): 5-A South Bracket here: I don’t like the bracket configuration, where the two teams from the same region have to meet before the final; if (say) Indian River and Hickory are the two best 5-A teams … they shouldn’t have to play until the finals.  Games set for 5/30-6/3.

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

Quick predictions for 5-A south regional tourney: I like Hickory and Glen Allen’s chances, but we’re a ways from knowing how the regional sets up.

Smaller Virginia Classifications with Northern Virginia ties.  The local teams in 3-A Conference 27 have all moved/graduated to 4-A, so we’ll just cover 3-A Conference 28.

4-A North:

  • 4-A Conference 21 East/A: Conference 21 split into east and west this year, presumably for travel purposes.  In the Conference tournament, seeds held to form and #1 seed Millbrook beat #2 seed Woodgrove in the final.  Both teams advance to regionals.
  • 4-A Conference 21 West/B: Loudoun Valley’s reign over the conference was ended with a shock district tourney upset at the hands of Heritage (just 8-14 on the year).  In the district final Loudoun County faced off with Heritage and defeated them for the district title and regional berth.
  • 4-A Conference 22: Local powerhouse Kettle Run (17-1 in the regular season) faced John Champe (Aldie) in the district final.  Both teams are moving up in the world, having both been in 3-A last  year.

4-A South

  • 4-A Conference 17 now has perennial power Great Bridge, dropped down due to size.  They’ll be a force to reckon with in the state tourney along with Richmond’s Hanover.  In the district tournament, Great Bridge and Wilson met in the final where Great Bridge prevailed.

3-A East Region

  • 3-A Conference 28: District Champ William Monroe and #2 seed Brentsville District.  In the District Final, Seends held to form with #1 William Monroe taking both the regular season and district tourney title.

2-A East Region

  • 2-A Conference 35: District Champ Strasburg, local team George Mason is #3 seed and faces a tough drive to Madison County in the district semis, where they got beat badly 14-1.  in the District Final, Madison County upset #1 Seed Strasburg in an all-hitting affair 18-11.

Maryland

Here’s the state finals results in Maryland, played the week of 5/18/15.  Brackets here at the MPSAA website.

  • 4-A States: State Semis were 4-A East champs Leonardtown from St. Mary’s county (who beat Severna Park in a battle of the district #1 seeds), Quince Orchard (who beat favorite Gaithersburg in an all-Gaithersburg grudge match early and then outlasted surprise Bethesda-Chevy Chase in the 4-A West final), Bel Air (North of Baltimore) in 4-A North (outlasting Howard in an upset-filled tourney), and #1 Bowie (outside of Annapolis) outlasting Laurel in the 4-A south.  In the State Semis on 5/24/16, Quince Orchard took out Leonardtown 2-1 and Bel Air flattened Bowie 8-0.   In the State Final, Bel Air easily beat Quince Orchard 8-1 for the state title. 
  • 3-A States: State semis were 3-A East champ Chesapeake (Anne Arundel county), who defeated last year’s runner-up Mt. Hebron in the regional final, 3-A West champ Damascus, 3-A North Aberdeen and 3-A south Huntingtown (who beat Rockville in the regional final).  In the State Semis, Huntingtown defeated Aberdeen in extra innings while Chesapeake walked-off against Damascus in 8 innings.  In the state final on 5/30/16, Huntingtown rallied to overcome a 3-0 deficit in the 7th inning to win 4-3.
  • 2-A States: State semi finalists: Queen Anne’s, Williamsport, Eastern Tech and La Plata, who beat two time defending state champ Southern in the 2-A South regional final.  In the State Semis, La Plata destroyed Eastern Tech 18-1 and Williamsport took out Queen Anne’s.  In the state final, La Plata eased by Williamsport to take the title.
  • 1-A States: State semi finalists: St. Michaels, Brunswick, Patterson Mill (who defeated state finalist McDonough in their regional final) and Pikesville.  Brunswick keeps the repeat dreams alive while St. Michaels returns to try to claim a 3rd title in 6 years.  Brunswick and Patterson Mill advanced to the state final on 5/25/16.  In the state final, Brunswick repeated with a 4-0 victory.

A quick list of past Maryland State champions by division:

The Maryland public high school seasons are now complete.

DC Public Schools/DCIAA:

  • DCIAA: Wilson presumably kept its 20+ year winning streak in tact and took the regular season title in the District.  Rain delayed the playoffs, but per the bracket the Seeds held to the final with Wilson battling the School Without Walls (SWW). In that final, Wilson took its24th consecutive DCIAA title with an 11-1 win.  The gap in talent between even the best and 2nd best DCIAA team could be seen in the game report: all the Wilson seniors left after the 2nd inning so they could make the Prom … leaving all the underclassmen to win the game.
  • DCSAA: The DCSAA tournament started on 5/18/16 (Bracket Here), and Wilson once again has fallen short in winning the one title they’ve never won.  As the #2 seed they fell to #3 seeded St. Albans in the semis.  #4 seed Maret upset #1 seeded Gonzaga in the other semis, leaving a 5/27/16 final of Maret vs St. Albans.  There, St. Albans eased out a 2-1 victory to claim the DCSAA title.

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

Of note, Maryland baseball factory Riverdale Baptist has rolled of 30-straight victories and won the NACA national championship.

All 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:

  • 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:

  • Louisville Slugger All-Americans
  • Washington Post All-Met teams; have been named (seen some announcements on twitter), but have not been released.
  • 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
  • VISAA’s All-State teams, Division I, II and III
  • 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 has maintained #1 ranking all year.
  • 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

May 31st, 2016 at 7:09 am

Posted in Local Baseball

Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Local HS draft-prospects to keep an eye in for the 2016 draft

24 comments

Joe Rizzo may be the highest local draft pick we've seen in a while. Photo via insidenova.com

Oakton HS’ Joe Rizzo may be the highest local draft pick we’ve seen in a while. Photo via insidenova.com

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 area.  Because of the amount of text on the prep players I have this year, i’ve split the post up into Prep and college players.  This post is months in the making, starting in May of 2015 when the various all-Area teams are announced and underclassmen are listed.

The players are more or less listed in the rough order of their likely drafting: there’s 3-4 significant draft names to keep an eye one in particular (Rizzo, Lee, Agnos and Hess).  Read on.

(Post-publishing update: i’ve added in details/corrected errors per feedback and comments; thanks for all the updates!)

Here’s a list of DC/MD/VA Local Prep players who will be rising Seniors in 2016 worth mentioning.  I’ve tried to organize these players in the order of their significance as a prospect, which (fairly or not) i’ve driven mostly from their participation in tourneys and showcases.

  • Joe Rizzo, INF for Oakton HS.  Evoshield Canes Main Roster, early commit to South Carolina.  2015 All-Met, 6-A North Region player of the year as a junior.  VHSL All Virginia 6-A player of the year.  Hit an astounding .606 for Oakton as a junior.  At PG National.  Invited to the PG All-American game.  At WWBA 2015 with Evoshield.  Written up by Jonathan Mayo/mlb.com after his East Coast Pro game performance.  At Area Code games.  Rizzo looking like one of the better DC-area draft prospects we’ve had in years.  D1baseball top 100 hs draft prospects.
  • Khalil Lee, LHP/OF for Paul VI Flint Hill (via Centreville).  VISAA Division I all-state in 2015, early commit to Liberty.  2015 summer team: Richmond Braves.  At PG National.  Invited to the PG All-American game.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  Also mentioned in Mayo’s piece post after East Coast Pro.  At Area Code games.  At WWBA 2015 with Evoshield.  D1baseball top 100 hs draft prospects.
  • Jake Agnos, LHP from Battlefield HS.  2nd team All-Met 2015.  All Virginia 6-A in 2015.  Famous for his 21-K playoff performance in  in 2015 district tournament and his astounding 48 strikeouts in 21 playoff innings in 2015 against the region’s two best teams.  Committed to ECU.  Playing for Stars Showcase Red 17U.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  At WWBA 2015 with Stars Marucci Prime.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.  Agnos picked right back up where he left off last spring, no-hitting a good Hylton team in the opener, striking out 17.
  • Matt Mervis, RHP from Georgetown Prep.  2nd team All-Met 2015.  Early commit to Duke.  Playing for Chandler World.  At PG National, at USA Baseball’s Tournament of Stars.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  At Prep 60 in Chicago.  #1 ranked player in Maryland per Prep Baseball.
  • Tyler Blohm, LHP from Spalding  in Maryland.  2015 All-Met HM.  Baltimore All-Metro 2015.  Three-time MIAA all-state player as a junior. Early commit to Maryland.  Evoshield Canes Main Roster for 2015.  At PG National.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.
  • Jack Cunningham, RHP/OF for Paul VI (via South Riding).  2015 All-Met, runner up WCAC player of the year.  VISAA Division I all-state in 2015.  Playing for Stars Showcase Red 17U.  At WWBA 2015 with Stars Marucci Prime.  Committed to Boston College.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.
  • Anthony Felitti, LHP Gaithersburg HS.  10-0 with a 0.85 ERA as a junior, started and won 4-A title game.  2015 All-Met.  Playing for Mid-Atlantic Red Sox.  Early commit to UVA but has apparently signed with GMU.  Prep Baseball’s #2 Maryland prep player.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.
  • John Callahan, SS from Stone Bridge.  2015 All-Met, 2015 All 5-A North region. All Virginia 5-A.  GMU commit.  Diamond Elite for 2015.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.
  • Carter Sears, C from Spalding.  2015 2nd-team all-Metro Baltimore.  Committed to JMU per perfectgame.org.
  • Adam Schauer, RHP from St. Albans School in Washington DC.  A complete unknown until he popped up on an Area Code games roster.  Committed to Swathmore College per perfectgame.org
  • Matt Favero, LHP from Madison.  2nd team All-Met 2015.  All 6-A North Region.  2nd team all-State 6-A.  Playing for Stars Showcase Red/Blue 17U.  At WWBA 2015 with Stars Marucci Prime.  Committed to BYU.
  • Pete Nielsen, SS from Madison.  2nd team All-Met 2015, 2nd team All 6-A North Region.  At WWBA 2015 with Stars Marucci Prime.  Committed to BYU.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.
  • Rafi Vazquez, RHP/OF from O’Connell.  2nd team All-Met 2015.  VISAA Division I all-state in 2015.  Early commit to Coastal Carolina. Evoshield regional team.  WWBA 2015 with 17-U Evoshield.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.
  • Brett Norwood, DH from Chantilly.  2nd team All-Met 2015, All 6-A North region in 2015.  Little known about Norwood, who doesn’t have a perfectgame.org profile.
  • Eli Quiceno, C from Stone Bridge.  Starter for Stone Bridge’s two straight 5-A championship teams.  Playing for Diamond Elite.  Committed to Gannon University in Pennsylvania.
  • Nick Neville, SS from Lake Braddock IMG Academy in Florida (hails from Fairfax).  Little local recognition but got written up at the 17u WWBA event thanks to his speed and power.  Playing for Diamond Elite.  Moved to Florida for his Sr. year to play for IMG and is now committed to Notre Dame (h/t Joe Antonellis).
  • Elliott Zoellner, RHP from St. Marys (Annapolis).  Little local recognition but got written up at the 17u WWBA event thanks to his speed and power.  Playing for Evoshield North team.  WWBA 2015 with 17-U Evoshield.  Prep Baseball’s #3 ranked Maryland prep.  Committed to UMaryland per perfectgame.org.
  • Justin Ager, RHP for Loudoun Valley HS.  Committed to Yale, playing for Chandler World at 17u WWBA event.
  • Carter Bach, LHP/1B, OF for Centreville HS in Clifton, VA.  At WWBA 2015 with Stars Marucci Prime.  Committed to Wake Forest.
  • Steve Johel, RHP from Marshall HS, Vienna VA.  Committed to Coastal Carolina.
  • Jared DiCesare from Chantilly HS, Playing for Oriole’s Scout team summer of 2015.  Committed to GMU.  6-A North 2016 player of the year.
  • Logan Driscoll from Lake Braddock, Playing for Stars Baseball-Prime summer of 2015.  Also committed to GMU.
  • Trey Alderman from Forest Park HS (Manassas): Played for Stars summer of 2015, committed to Radford
  • Cam Remalia from St. Johns in DC (by way of Waldorf): Named 2016 Gatorade POTY for DC. Committed to Coastal Carolina.
  • Fox Semones, RHP from Hylton, committed to JMU.  Nice WP feature on him post Hylton’s 6-A South victory.  Probably not a draft prospect but mentioned here.
  • Brendon Doyle, OF from Kettle Run, committed to VMI.  2016 4A West Region player of the year.
  • Alex Smith, C from Mountain View.  Committed to Navy.  2015 5-A North region player of the year.

 

Here’s a list of extended DC/MD/VA Prep players (outside DC Area) on the radar.

  • Zack Hess, 1B/OF from Liberty Christian Academy (Lynchburg).  VISAA Division I player of the year as a junior in 2015, early commit to Virginia Tech but now committed to LSU (thanks commenter joemktg).  Playing for the Dirtbags (NC) summer of 2015.  At PG National.  Showed 93-95 at WWBA 17u tournament.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  At the Area Code games 2015.  Will be at the 2016 National HS Invitational in March.  D1baseball top 100 hs draft prospects.  Nearly threw a no-hitter at the NHSI.
  • Brenan Hanifee, RHP from Turner Ashby.  ECU commit, little known about him until he became a 4th round pick in 2016.
  • Garrett Stallings, RHP from Grassfield HS (Chesapeake).  Evoshield Canes main roster, early commit to Tennessee.  At PG National.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  Area Code games 2015.  At WWBA 2015 with Evoshield, getting the Win in the championship game.  All 6-A south region 2016.
  • Michael Bienlien, RHP from Great Bridge (Chesapeake).  Evoshield Canes main roster, early commit to South Carolina but now committed to NC State (thanks commenter joemktg).  At PG National.  At East Coast Pro 2015, at WWBA 2015.
  • Noah Murdock, a big (6’7″) RHP from Colonial Heights (Richmond).  All 3-A East Region 2015, early UVA commit.  VA Cardinals for summer 2015.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  In Richmond Times/Dispatch’s 2016 pre-season watch list.
  • Cayman Richardson, SS from Hanover in Mechanicsville (NE Richmond suburb).  VA Cardinals for summer 2015, early UVA commit.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  In Richmond Times/Dispatch’s 2016 pre-season watch list.
  • Vinnie Pasquantino, a 1B from James River HS (Richmond); VA Cardinals for summer 2015, written up during WWBA 17u tourney.  Committed to ODU.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  In Richmond Times/Dispatch’s 2016 pre-season watch list.
  • Robert “Bobby” Nicholson: P/Inf from St. Anne’s Belfield HS (Charlottesville), early commit to UVA.  USA Baseball’s Tournament of Stars.  Playing for Chandler World.  Written up during 17u WWBA event.
  • Justin Sorokowski, 3B/OF from Lee-Davis HS in Mechanicsville (NE Richmond suburb).  VA Cardinals for summer 2015, early Florida State commit.  In Richmond Times/Dispatch’s 2016 pre-season watch list.
  • Derek Bjorlo, utility from Nandua HS (Onancock, on the Delmarva peninsula), Evoshield American for 2015, committed to Coastal Carolina.  At WWBA 2015 with the main Evoshield team.
  • Hayden Moore, RHP from Hanover HS, Evoshield regional roster for 2015, early commit to VCU.
  • Jalen Harrison, OF from St. Anne’s Belfield HS (Charlottesville), early commit to UVA.  Evoshield American for 2015.
  • Forrest Smith, C from Maggie Walker (Richmond), early commit to William & Mary.  Evoshield American for 2015.
  • John Fitzgerald, 3B from Gilman (Baltimore).  All-MIAA and all-Metro Baltimore 2015.  No PG profile.
  • William Strong, 1B from Patrick Henry (Ashland/Richmond).  All 5-A North Region 2015.  Playing for Evoshield Canes.  Committed to Florence-Darlington Technical College per PG.
  • Matthew Nickles, 3B from Colonial Forge (Stafford).  All Virginia 6-A South in 2015; Committed to Randolph-Macon per Joe Antonellis.  All 6-A south region 2016.
  • Paul Movizzo, 1B/OF from Cox HS (Virginia Beach).  2nd-team all Virginia 6-A in 2015.
  • Corey Klak, LHP from Western Branch HS (Chesapeake).  VA Cardinals for summer 2015, written up during WWBA 17u tourney.  Also committed to ODU.  All 6-A south region 2016.
  • Banks Northington, 1B/OF from Charlottesville HS, playing for Chandler World at WWBA 17u.  Committed per PBR to Gettysburg college.
  • Bryce Runey, C from Riverbend HS in Spotsylvania, VA.  At WWBA 2015 with Evoshield.  Committed to Mary Washington per PG.
  • Harry Brown, C/1B, 3B from Greenbrier Christian Academy in Virginia Beach, VA.  WWBA 2015 with Richmond Braves, committed to JMU.  2016 VISAA Division II player of the year.
  • Andre Lipcius & Luc Lipcius: from Lafayette HS in Williamsburg, VA.  Early commits to Tennessee, WWBA 2015 with Richmond Braves.
  • Kyle Battle, Glen Allen OF, early commit to ODU.  In Richmond Times/Dispatch’s 2016 pre-season watch list.
  • Kent Klyman, LHP from Jamestown HS in Williamsburg.  NC State commit.  Lots of velocity, no PG presence.
  • Andrew Webb, C Forest Park.  6-A south All-Region 2016.
  • Christian Hague, 1B/RHP Cosby.   6-A south All-Region 2016.
  • Dwight Riddick, 2B Grassfield.  6-A south All-Region 2016.  Committed to Norfolk State
  • Logan Barker, 2B Colonial Forge.  6-A south All-Region 2016.  Committed to Marshall
  • Chase Counts, SS Ocean Lakes.   6-A south All-Region 2016.  Committed to Hampton-Sydney

Coincidentally, PrepBaseballReport.com keeps a database of commitments at this link here for VA players; pulldowns by class and state.

I suspect more than a few of these guys will get drafted and forgo college, but if not, here’s a quick look at the commits by college (with the caveat that lots of these are “very early” and probably change).  I’ve got the college in rough order of their national significance.

  • Florida State: Sorokowski
  • South Carolina: Rizzo
  • LSU: Hess
  • UVA: Murdock, Richardson, Nicholson, Harrison
  • ECU: Agnos
  • Coastal Carolina: Vazquez, Johel, Bjorlo, Remalia
  • UMaryland: Blohm, Zoellner
  • NC State: Bienlien, Klyman
  • VCU: Moore
  • Duke: Mervis
  • Wake Forest: Bach
  • Tennessee: Stallings, Lipcius, Lipcius
  • Boston College: Cunningham
  • Notre Dame: Neville
  • Liberty: Lee
  • ODU: Pasquantino, Klak, Battle
  • George Mason: Felitti, Callahan, DiCesare, Driscoll
  • William & Mary: Smith
  • BYU: Favero, Nielsen
  • JMU: Sears, Brown, Semones
  • Radford: Alderman
  • VMI: Doyle
  • Navy: Smith
  • Randolph-Macon: Nickles
  • Mary Washington: Runey
  • Yale: Ager
  • Swathmore: Schauer
  • Florence-Darlington Technical College: Strong
  • Norfolk State: Riddick
  • Hampton Sydney: Counts
  • Gannon: Quiceno
  • Gettysburg: Northington
  • Undecided/Unknown: Norwood, Fitzgerald, Movizzo

 

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):

National pre-season lists

  • USAToday Pre-Season Prep all Americans 2016: nobody local but a huge number of names you’re going to hear in the 1st round in June.

2015/16 National tourneys/Showcase events:

Local Baseball links

 

 

Written by Todd Boss

March 28th, 2016 at 9:10 am

Posted in Draft,Local Baseball

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

2016 DC/MD/VA High School Preview

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Welcome to the 2016 High School Baseball season!  According to my handy 2016 baseball calendar (which has separate tabs for Amateur, off-season and in-season dates) here’s a quick guide to some key high school baseball dates (both local and national):

  • 3/14/2016: First official VHSL baseball game of the season
  • 3/21/2016: First official MPSSAA baseball game of the season
  • 3/21/2016: First official DCIAA baseball game of the season
  • 5/13/2016 – 5/18/2016: MPSSAA Sectionals (qtrs, semis, finals)
  • 5/20/2016: MPSSAA Regional Finals
  • 5/12/2016 – 5/20/2016: VHSL Conference Tournaments
  • 5/19/2016 – 5/25/2016: DCIAA Playoffs
  • 5/24/2016: MPSSAA State Semi-Finals
  • 5/25/2016 – 6/3/2016: VHSL Regional Tournaments
  • 5/27/2016 – 5/28/2016: MPSSAA State Finals Weekend
  • 6/10/2016 – 6/13/2016: VHSL State Tournaments

(VHSL = Virginia High School League, covering Virginia public high schools.  MPSSAA = Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association, covering Maryland public high schools.  DCIAA = District of Columbia Interscholastic Athletic Association).

Local Baseball Preview Links

Local and National High School Baseball Ranking Lists:

  • Washington Post All Met Sports: pre-season top 10: Madison, Spalding, Gaithersburg, St. Johns, Battlefield; might be a bit low for Battlefield..
  • Baltimore Sun Pre-season top 15: Archbishop Spalding (last  year’s #1) is #1 again, followed by Calvert Hall, Severna Park, Mount Hebron and St. Marys.
  • The Virginian Pilot Pre-Season top-10 for Hampton Roads area: Hickory, Grassfield, Western Branch, Greenbrier christian and First colonial lead the way of annual powers in the Tidewater area.
  • Richmond times-Dispatch Pre-season top 5: perennial power Hanover, Lee-Davis, Deep Run, Glen Allen, Collegiate.
  • Baseball America’s 1st 2016 National High School Rankings 3/9/16: defending 6-A champ Madison (Vienna) ranked #17.
  • USA Today High School top 25: already in their 2nd week of doing rankings as of 3/16/16: no local teams ranked.
  • MaxPreps “Excellent 25” ranking for 3/14/16: Madison listed all the way up at #11.

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

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: i’ll freely admit i am not “good” at twitter, but here’s some good twitter links:

  • 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

March 25th, 2016 at 7:46 am

Posted in Local Baseball

Tagged with ,