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C35 National 2024 starts with three wins

john cate, the sanford herald, n.c.
·4 min read

Jul. 20—The C35 National 2024 team had to settle for the silver in its last tournament, but a championship-game loss to a powerhouse Kentucky team in its final game hasn't carried over to this week's event.

C35 National is taking part in the 2022 WWBA 2024 Grads or 16U National Championship in Georgia this week, facing an even stronger field than was present in last week's Coastal Summer Championship in High Point. The team, coached by Lee Senior head baseball coach Jevon Wade and now featuring four of his Yellow Jacket players, along with several other standouts from the Sandhills Athletic Conference, won its first three games of pool play and will resume action with another pool game on Wednesday morning.

C35 National has a 16-5-1 record this summer against competition from across the nation. It began play in the national event on Saturday with a 6-3 victory over the South DeKalb Tribe 16U, followed up on Sunday with a 14-0 rout of USA Prime Georgia 16U, and then whipped the Long Island Bodyarmor Titans 16U 9-2 on Monday. The team was off Tuesday.

The only team that gave C35 any trouble was South DeKalb, which played the three best teams in the pool in its first three games and suffered two close losses and one tie. The Tribe actually took a 2-0 lead in the second inning before C35 answered with four in the third. It was a 4-3 game before C35 scored twice in the sixth and final inning to pull away.

Some of the issues C35 had in this game were of their own making. Neither of its pitchers, winner Aiden Carroll (South Garner) or saver Presley Patterson (Lee) was charged with an earned run. The local contingent outhit South DeKalb 10-5, but also committed three errors.

In the third inning, C35 had singles by Camron Seagraves (Richmond), a walk to BJ Brown (Lee) and a single by Bryant Kimbrell (Pinecrest) before Kimbrell's high school teammate Grayson Hudgins got C35 on the board with a single of his own. Austin Mooring (Union Pines) walked, and then Parker Pritchett (South Garner) smashed a double into right field for a 4-2 C35 lead.

In the sixth, the team got its insurance runs on a one-out walk to Seagraves and a single by Cody Callahan (North Brunswick). Three wild pitches did the rest of the work as both runners kept moving up.

Sunday's game with USA Prime Georgia was never in doubt after C35 scored three times in the third inning, but the 14-0 final score was misleading, due to a massive 11-run outburst in the final frame. The standouts were C35's pitchers. Walker McDuffie (Lee) worked the first 4 1/3 innings and left after 60 pitches and six strikeouts, allowing just two hits. Callahan finished up with 2 2/3 scoreless and hitless innings, whiffing eight.

Brown made his Lee teammate the winning pitcher with his three-run homer in the third inning, after Patterson led off with a single and Carroll doubled with one out. The second out was recorded, but then Brown rocketed a 1-0 pitch over the left-field wall at Newnan (Ga.) High, where the game was played.

C35 sent 15 batters to the plate in the wild seventh inning, which featured a two-run double by Kimbrell and a three-run double by Patterson.

Brown went 2-for-3 with four RBI, Kimbrell 2-for-4 with two RBI, Patterson 2-for-3 with three RBI, and Carroll was a perfect 3-for-3 with two runs scored. Mooring also collected two hits.

There was no letdown in Monday's game against the Long Island Titans, a team based in Bayport, New York. The Titans, who were the "home" team at East Cobb Complex in Marietta, Ga., took a 1-0 lead in the first. C35 promptly hit them in the mouth to the tune of nine runs in the top of the second, and the game was over from a competitive standpoint.

James Eason (Richmond) and Pritchett opened the second with back-to-back singles. McDuffie drove in Eason with a groundout, and then Addison Roth (Pinecrest) had an RBI single for a 2-1 C35 lead. After a walk to Carroll, the second out was recorded, but then Brown singled to drive in two more runs. Things got out hand after that, as Mooring and Patterson walked, Eason was hit by a pitch, Pritchett singled, and then McDuffie and Roth both walked with the bases loaded.

This game only went five innings. Seagraves pitched the first 3 1/3, allowing one earned run with seven strikeouts, and then Roth finished up.

C35 National, 3-0 in pool play, is scheduled to face second-place Easton Prime (2-0-1) at 8 a.m. today, weather permitting. Some adverse weather conditions affected the schedule on Tuesday. A total of 446 teams from across the nation entered the tournament, with 128 advancing to the knockout stage starting Thursday.