C35 2023 reaches Elite Eight of PBR Nationals
Jul. 27—The time when most summer league baseball players will be returning to school is drawing near, and even high school-age travel teams will be taking a bit of a break once that occurs. But the dog days of summer are still ongoing, and local players in the C35 baseball program are playing on.
C35 2023 National, a team of elite prospects who are mostly rising seniors, has been busy over the last several days competing in Prep Baseball Report's 17U National Championship, a tournament featuring hundreds of teams that have converged on Emerson, Ga. for the event. It began last Wednesday and ended on Tuesday.
C35 2023 National played eight games in the tournament, finishing with a 6-2 record. They finished second in their pool to Team MaxBat 17U, with three wins in their first four games, but then reeled off three wins in the playoff bracket for the top 64 teams. C35 ended the tournament as one of the top eight teams in the nation after falling 12-8 to 5 Star Midsouth 2023 National on Monday evening in a quarterfinal game.
They came very close to winning that game, as well, 5 Star Midsouth, a team based out of Tennessee, jumped out in front 6-0 in the first inning, but C35 2023 rallied and held an 8-7 lead going into the sixth and final inning. The Tennessee squad put five runs on the board in that final frame to pull out the win. The fatal blow came on a two-out, three-run double with the score tied at 8. C35 got two men on base in the bottom of the sixth but failed to score.
C35 2023 National includes several players with local connections. Southern Lee's Pierce Bouwman, Ashton Donathan and Kale Scruggs are joined by Lee County's Cameron Cabe and Nicholas Pope, and Grace Christian's Joseph Taylor. The team's summer season began in early June and they now own a 20-5-1 overall record, including a title at the WWBA Goldsboro Summer Championship in mid-June.
The tournament opened last Wednesday with C35 shutting out the Ninth Inning Royals 4-0. Scruggs got the win in this one for 3 2/3 innings of work in which he allowed just one hit.
After losing to Max Bat 17U last Friday in a game was closer than the 6-1 final score indicated, C35 2023 bounced back Saturday with a 17-0 beatdown of Canes Premier KY, in a game so lopsided it was called after just three innings. C35 scored 14 runs in the first inning alone, with Bouwman the top hitter, going 2-for-2 with a triple and four RBI.
That night, C35 got into a more competitive game against 17U Mac N Seitz, collecting just three hits but winning 3-0 on a six-hit shutout by Asher Lucas of Cary's Pro5 Baseball Academy. Ty Mathis (Harrells Christian) went 2-for-2 for C35, while Donathan drove in a run with a fifth-inning double after Mathis had tripled.
On Sunday, C35 took the field for the first time at 5:30 and scored a 6-2 win over Missouri's 17U Downs UA St. Louis Prospects. They built a 6-0 lead through the first four innings before St. Louis scored two in the fifth. Bouwman again carried a big bat in this one, going 2-for-3 with two RBI. He was on the mound for much of the contest, pitching 41/3 innings with one run allowed and three strikeouts for the win. Austin Renn (Holly Springs) finished up for the save.
This put them in the playoff bracket as one of the top 64 teams. On Monday morning, they scored a 5-3 win over Complete Game 17U National, in which Bouwman, Mathis and Renn each collected two hits. Noah Arnett of Pinecrest started and worked the first five innings for the win, with Scruggs tossing the final two for a save. In a second Monday game, C35 allowed just one hit over seven innings and blanked 2023 MASH Henkenmeyer 6-0. Bouwman went 1-for-4 with a double and an RBI, but Stephen Kriner (Freedom Christian) was the big hitter, at 3-for-4 with two RBI. Donathan started at catcher and was 1-for-3 with a run scored. Luke Brown went the distance and struck out 10 on the mound.
