The start of November sees us at the Sun Fall Classic for the first day of games at the Orlando, Fla.  There are as many as 15 games happening simultaneously so it’s hard to see everything but there are great players on every field and good stories are easy to find… we’re taking photos and shooting video and here pass along some of the news and notes picked up along the way… also, we profile one of the club teams here, the Wagner’s Gold-Dunn team which finished second in the ASA 18U Gold Nationals.

By the way, if anyone at Ronald McDonald has info, photos and/or news, I’d love to run that as well so send to me! – brentt@studentsports.com

 

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EVENT COVERAGE: DIAMOND9 SUN CLASSIC FALL SHOWCASE

*** It’s funny how you can walk on a field and see someone that instantly grabs your eye.  That was the case with Vada Sherrill, a 2015 third baseman who is a pick-up for this event and is playing with the NC Lady Lightning Team Mike squad.  She normally plays with the Carolina Cobras.

Vada committed to Virginia Tech about a month ago and said, “When I went on my trip, I really liked the school and that did it for me.”

From Hiddenite, N.C., I watched her one inning and she made a jumping catch on a laser shot down the line for the first out and then made a smooth fielding play to snare a ball, stepped on the bag and threw to first for a double play.

 

*** The St. Louis Chaos team has a lot of good players committed to programs like Louisville, Kentucky, Iowa, St. Louis, Wichita State and several others.

The latest is pitcher Maddie Seifert, a tall pitcher who verballed to Penn State recently.

“They came and saw me in St. Louis and I visited the school and loved it,” she said.  “I went home and thought about it for a week and decided to commit.”

Siefert is tall and athletic with good spins and a nice drop ball.  I saw her take the field right after the Jersey Intensity played, which has a player she’ll play with in catcher/infielder Alyssa VanDerveer who’s also going to Penn State.

 

*** There are several OC Batbusters teams here and, not surprisingly, the OC Batbuster-Haning team looked strong as Arizona commit Taylor McQuillin pitched effectively and Oklahoma-bound Mariah Lopez was blowing batters away for the Mike Stith coached team.

But don’t overlook the OC Batbusters 16U team coached by Mike Smith.  Watched them beat an 18U team as they scored 10 runs and looked dominant.

The team has three players committed including 2016 infielders Mackenzie Boesel (South Carolina) and Lynzie Pacheco (Hawaii) and a 2017 catcher/third baseman in Jocelyn Alo.

Here are observations on each:

— Boesel is a left-handed line drive rope hitter who has a great glove and is very good laterally.  She committed to the Gamecocks about a month ago.

— Lynzie plays third and second and is going to Hawaii because she has tons of relatives there.  She has great power, but also hits for average.  A versatile hitter with a solid glove at third, she also has better than average speed.  She committed in July 2012.

— Alo is from Hawaii and likes Cal because she has family in the Bay Area.  She is an unreal hitter and is one of the best power hitters of any of the underclass players in the country.  She played first when I saw her and plays hard on every play.

 

*** Great story on that same Batbusters team in Hannah Howell, who’s a outfielder in the 2016 class.

She is on a lot of school’s radar now—programs as diverse as Tennessee, Cal, Boston College, North Carolina and Harvard. Yes, Harvard because she has a 4.7 GPA.

What’s interesting is she was about 5-foot-1 last year and less than 100 pounds, but has grown to 5-foot-6 and projects to be about 5-foot-9.  She’s a great slapper and has excellent speed—she ran a 2.7 home to first last year and has to be faster now.  She went 6-for-7 in the first two games of the Sun Classic and is a true triple threat.

Hannah comes from big-time blood lines too as her dad Bruce was a record-setting swimmer who was supposed to swim in the ’80 Moscow Olympics but the event was boycotted by the U.S.

Hannah has those athletic genes and with her speed, great bat control and academics, she will be a big-time player.

 

*** Really enjoyed getting to talk to some nice college coaches including Ralph Weekly of Tennessee (watching future Vols pitcher Kelsey Morrison of the Wildfire Stutsman); Carol Bruggeman, catching a St. Louis Chaos game, which has a couple Cardinal commits and Notre Dame’s Kris Ganeff, who was watching the Hackbarth twins on the California Grapetes, Kindra and Madison.

Coach Ganeff , by the way, comes from one of the greatest cities in the U.S., Columbus, Ohio, and will be featured tomorrow morning in a video we put on the site… stay tuned.

 

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CLUB PROFILE: WAGNER’S GOLD-DUNN

Had a chance to catch up with one of Florida’s top teams which is playing in the Sun Classic…

In only a matter of six years, the Wagner’s Gold-Dunn team has become one of the top programs in Florida along with others like the Gold Coast Hurricanes, Team North Florida and Miami Stingrays.

Probably the best club team in Central Florida, the Wagner’s Gold team took second in the ASA Gold Nationals this past summer that was played in Clearwater, Fla. The Atlanta Vipers Gold team took the title.

“We caught lightning in a bottle,” says Assistant Coach Anthony Ocasio of the team’s march to the championship game.  “It was a total team effort.”

Head Coach Sean Dunn jumps in and says that the key to the team’s success was the pitching prowess of Coach Ocasio’s daughter, Aleshia Ocasio, who goes by the nickname “Lele.”

“With her pitching you’re in every game,” states Coach Dunn, the namesake of the team.  “She’s the great equalizer and in her first six innings of this event (Sun Classic), she hasn’t allowed a run.

Both coaches have daughters on the team and along with Assistant Coach Faron Tidwell, built an original program called the Oviedo Blaze when all three girls were playing at the 10U level.

“We built it originally to keep getting better and build a culture of fun so they could enjoy playing at the highest level,” remembers Ocasio.

Over the last six years, the trio of players—Lele Ocasio, Kori Dunn and Kelli Tidwell—continued to improve and drew other talented players to them.  It was only last summer that the team name was changed to Wagner’s Gold-Dunn and the name switch coincided with the great ASA run.

Though the pitcher-catcher batter is intact, the team graduated seven seniors and according to Coach Dunn “lost true power hitting and leadership.”

Two of the talented players who are now are at the college level were infielders Mary Warren (Alabama-Birmingham) and Victoria Daddis (Florida State), who was also named as the Florida Class 5A Player of the Year.

The coaches, explains Ocasio, look at the fall season as a chance to “see where we want to be” and by the time the high school season is over next spring will finalize the lineup to get ready to make another championship run.

One strength of the current team is speed.

“That’s what we’re known for, if anything,” Ocasio continues.  “That and pitching.  Any power is a bonus.”

Now, with the coach’s daughters being seniors, their fathers are looking to make one more championship run.

“We’ll play at Triple Crown in Atlanta next year, have an automatic qualifier to ASA and will see how it goes for PGF,” concludes Coach Ocasio.

“It’ll be interesting, that’s for sure.

Editor’s note: when we launched the Hot 100 players list (the best of the 2014 class), the one player we got the most feedback on not being included was Lele Ocasio.  Having watched her at Sun Classic and talking to club and college coaches, we can see what all the feedback was about!  If we revise the list, she will be on it…

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Here’s a player-by-player look at the Wagner’s Dunn Gold team with comments by Assistant Coach Anthony Ocasio and Head Coach Sean Dunn:

— P/3B Ashton Adkins (2014, Indian Rivers State College)
“Ashton is a great competitor, she has a unique, awkward-looking delivery that gets batters off-balance.  Her screwball is her out pitch and she also has a rise, curve and change-up.”

— 3B/P/1B Taylor Cruce (2015, uncommitted)
“Taylor led the Florida high schools last year with 12 home runs so you know she has tremendous power.  What’s exciting is she’s still learning to hit so she can and will get even better.”

— OF Kylie Dechau (2014, Gwinnett College)
“Kylie is as fundamentally sound of an outfielder as you’ll see.  She has great mechanics and is quiet and reliable.  Kylie has a great attitude and is very loyal.”

— IF Elicia D’Orazio (2014, Marshall)
“Elicia is the prototypical leadoff hitter and just gets on base.  She can play every position but pitcher and mostly plays second for us.  Elicia will run through a fence for you.”

— P/1B/OF Gabby Draney (2014, Florida Gulf Coast)
“Gabby is a tough competitor and has pitched in the biggest of games, be it at Triple Crown, ASA or PGF.  She’s not afraid to pitch against the best. She isn’t over-powering, but she nibbles and has excellent control.”

— C/OF Kori Dunn (2014, Florida Gulf Coast)
“Kori may be the fastest kid in Florida softball and she’s a catcher.  She’s also the toughest catcher you’ll ever see.  She once fouled a ball off her ankle and they called an ambulance and Kori said for everyone to get off the field and she got a single.  Kori also played three games with a broken collarbone.  She’s as tough as nails.”

— MIF Kyla Hussey (2015, uncommitted)
“Kayla is a new addition to our team.  She’s super smart and on defense has great range and instincts.  Kyla already has a college level glove and she’s coming around on offense too.  Once that gets to be like her defense, she’ll be a high level DI player.”

— 3B/1B Brittany McGuire (2014, Florida Gulf Coast)
“Brittany is as strong as an ox and has tons of power.  She’s solid on the corners defensively and is a great kid, she’s always smiling and joking around.”

— P/SS Aleshia “Lele” Ocasio (2014, Florida Gulf Coast)
“Ask most people who know softball and they’ll say she’s the best pitcher in Florida.  She’s an incredible athlete and when not pitching is playing shortstop.  She runs the home to first in a 2.5 to 2.6 time and at the plate hits for power but can bunt and beat it out.  She is a true five-tool player.”

— OF/1B Izzy Ordorica (2014, UCLA)
“Izzy is a fantastic kid, she has a good stick and unreal smarts.  She was an NFCA Scholar Athlete and works very hard and always gives you everything she’s got.”

— CF Janae Perreira (2015, Florida International)
“Janae isn’t big, she’s probably 4-foot-10 but plays like she’s 8-foot-10.  She’s a ball of fire and if your team is low on energy she’s the one who will get it going.  Everything Janae does is 100 percent, she is a zero-to-sixty type of player.  She’s also one of the fastest on the team and covers all kinds of ground, probably a 2.7 home to first.”

— OF/MIF Cacey Simmons (2014, State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota)
“Cacey is a fantastic right-fielder and her nickname is ‘Sneaky Weapon.’  She can go 0-2 in the count and then hit it in the gap.  She’s also a great student and is always fun to be around.”

— 1B/SS Kelli Tidwell (2014, State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota)
“Kelli has been down with a knee energy and her fiercely competitive desire to play actually works against her as she will play injured and not totally get healthy.  But when she’s good she has tremendous power and a cannon for an arm.  She’s a natural first baseman and is one of the originals with us.  Kelli is also the team prankster.”

— P/1B Lindsey White (2015, uncommitted)
“Lindsey is new to the team and has loads of potential.  She throws in the low 60’s and has tons of movement on her pitches.  She’s easily six-feet and still young.  Lindsey has a lot left in her arm and if she keeps working hard she’ll play at a top DI program.”

— C/3B Bethany Williams (2014, Univ. of Charleston, West Va.)
“Bethany is also a new girl and has been battling the injury bug as she hurt her foot in our second tournament and has it in a boot.  When healthy she has a big stick, lots of power and is very solid at the plate.  Only one base runner stole on her in the first 10-20 who tried.”

 

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