Canes Baseball

Congrats to the Canes for this ranking! It's a testament to the work that you guys put in year round in terms of recruiting and working with your players.

I'm surprised there's not Honorable mention for the 17u rankings...

Thats pretty impressive in two age groups.

Are they the only VA teams listed on the list?

quote:

Originally posted by stilllearning:
Thats pretty impressive in two age groups.

Are they the only VA teams listed on the list?

Yes, no other VA team is in the Top 25.

Is it the North team that is ranked?

One of my favorite Cane's threw a gem last night. Stephen Godfrey of Douglas Freeman, 2012, beat Deep Run in a 9 inning 2-1 ball game.

Godfrey gave up a home run in the 1st and then went on to pitch all 9 innings! He only threw about 110 pitches. He only allowed 4 hits! It was one of the gutsiest pitching performance I've ever seen from a high school kid. The win clinched the district title. A loss would have meant a 1 game play off with Godwin High School.

Tough kid.


Rich Prado
www.playinschool.com

Congratulations on those rankings. When you're up there with, or even above, teams like ABD and the All American Prospects, you have definitely arrived!

This speaks well not only of your program, but also of something all of us knew. Virginia is more a hotbed of baseball talent than we usually get credit for. Thanks for helping to bring our light out from under the bushel basket!

Redbird,

when you say that no other VA team is ranked in the top 25, are you referring to only CANES teams or any VA team in general??? I ask this because I'm not 100% positive, but I'm fairly certain that there are other teams throughout the state that are ranked in the top 25 in the country...according to Perfect Game that is...

quote:

Originally posted by Peter Franchise:
Redbird,

when you say that no other VA team is ranked in the top 25, are you referring to only CANES teams or any VA team in general??? I ask this because I'm not 100% positive, but I'm fairly certain that there are other teams throughout the state that are ranked in the top 25 in the country...according to Perfect Game that is...

Redbird was not referring to only CANES teams. All you have to do is click upon the links which Redbird provided in his post and you will see the top 25 per Perfect Game along with their states of origin. Most of the teams are from Texas, California and Florida.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter Franchise:
Redbird,

when you say that no other VA team is ranked in the top 25, are you referring to only CANES teams or any VA team in general??? I ask this because I'm not 100% positive, but I'm fairly certain that there are other teams throughout the state that are ranked in the top 25 in the country...according to Perfect Game that is...

Click either link I posted and you will see that both Canes teams are the only VA teams represented in the Top 25 according to PG.

quote:

Originally posted by PIS:
One of my favorite Cane's threw a gem last night. Stephen Godfrey of Douglas Freeman, 2012, beat Deep Run in a 9 inning 2-1 ball game.

Rich,

Stephen pitches for me. He threw most of our tough games last year. I like him a lot.

http://www.perfectgame.org/ran...teams/15u/teams.aspx

Please help me out if I am mistaken, but I'm pretty sure this "Perfect Game" Top 25 rankings (updated 05/18/10) reads that there are THREE more travel teams that are rated amongst the best in the nation. One is a Northern VA team ranked #6, one is a Richmond (Hanover) team ranked #10 and the other is a Tidewater team ranked #16... I just want to give credit where credit is due...congrats to all the teams that have earned their Top 25 rankings!!! Good luck in your high school tournaments as well!!!

Peter,

I was speaking of 16u and 17u. I didn't look at 15u and below. Congrats!

Was this the 16u North team or South team?

Great stuff by the way. As was said, nice to see Virginia making some noise.

No surprise there at all. The Canes do it right and always have from everything I've heard. Jeff Petty and his crew are top of the food chain.

I'm a little shocked the Braves weren't able to crack into the top 25. From my understanding they are always ultra competitive in the national events and are almost always there in the round of 16.

Just to add a footnote, I got my first look at Stephen Godfrey this past Sat. afternoon. He was very much as advertised.

The Cardinals have thus far put up 79 runs in 32 turns at bat against all other pitchers, but Godfrey shut us out for 5 innings at JMU.

I think he has solid velocity, especially given he's only 16 (rising junior) with lots of room to grow, but I wouldn't describe him as overpowering. What he does is mix and spot a solid curve and a solid change up, but always returns to his fastball as his main pitch -- something so many guys forget to do. He pitched with poise and confidence and showed that he understands pitch selection and sequencing as well.

A comparison might be to Seth Cutler-Voltz, rising junior at VCU who's doing quite well there. But I would think Godfrey would, given his age, soon surpass SCV's fastball velocity.

Someone is going to enjoy having him at the front of their Division I rotation someday.

I have not looked at the Canes rosters for this summer, but are these really Virginia teams? Last I looked, the majority of the rosters were comprised of players from outside of Virginia.

The point is not to denigrate the accomplishments of the Canes, it is merely to point out that the Canes, like most top-quality travel teams, are made up of players from a range of States. The Midland teams from Ohio are not "Ohio" teams. They may be based there, but most of the players come in from outside of Ohio. To compete at this level nowadays, most of these teams teams must have interstate rosters.

Here is a breakdown of the VA players on the Canes rosters:

17 North - 2 VA players
17 South - 13 VA players
16 North - 17 VA players
16 South - 7 VA players