JUPITER,Fla. —Home runs are normally few and far between at events involving high school players using wood bats playing on major league spring training fields. But Saturday was a day to behold at the 2007 World Wood Bat Association Fall Championship.

 

There were the unusually high total of 11 home runs hit in 62 games played at the combined spring training complexes of the Florida Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals, and many had game-changing—and possible playoff—implications.

 

The two most dramatic blasts were late-inning grand slams that provided all the scoring in a pair of 4-0 wins by the Atlanta Braves Scout Team and the Texas Scout Team, two of the pre-tournament favorites. The Braves remained unbeaten in pool play with the win and went to 3-0 in the tournament with an easy late-night, pool-clinching victory. Texas , however, was upset in the final session of Saturday’s play in a game that ended at 1 a.m.

 

Second baseman Chris Amezquita (Servite HS, La Mirada, Calif.) went deep with the bases loaded and two out in the top of the seventh and final inning as the Braves pulled out a 4-0 victory over Champions Baseball of Florida. A short time later, shortstop Cutter Dykstra (Westlake HS, Thousand Oaks, Calif.) slammed a bases-loaded shot in the fifth inning as Texas beat the Ontario Blue Jays 4-0.

 

Amezquita and Dykstra are the two top middle infield prospects from the Southern California high school ranks and, coincidentally, have verbally committed to play at UCLA. Both also project as second- to fourth-round picks in next year’s draft and were heavily in demand when the Braves and Texas Scout Teams scoured the country for elite talent while assembling teams specifically for the WWBA tournament. Dykstra is the son of former major leaguer Lenny Dykstra.

 

A third grand slam was also hit on Saturday by Orlando Scorpions catcher and cleanup hitter Ben McMahan (Bishop Moore HS, Windermere, Fla.) to cap a six-run third inning as the Scorpions defeated Perfect Game Maroon 7-1. The Scorpions moved to 2-0 with a second win later Saturday.

 

Not all the home runs hit Saturday were grand slams, but several had no less a sense of drama.

 

The East Cobb (Ga.) Astros sealed an 8-0 win over the New Jersey Twins as power-hitting first baseman Chase Davidson (Milton HS, Alpharetta, Ga.) hit a walk-off, three-run shot in the bottom of the sixth inning. His homer triggered the tournament run-rule, which requires that a game ends prematurely when a team is up by eight or more runs after five innings.

 

Davidson’s homer was all the more dramatic as he hit it in a pinch-hit role after just returning to the tournament at game time from his home in Georgia . After doubling twice in East Cobb’s 12-0 win on Thursday night, the 6-foot-5, 215-pound Davidson went home to play in a high school football game on Friday night before returning to Jupiter and rejoining his baseball teammates again on Saturday.

 

East Cobb, the 2003 champion and 2005 co-champion, went to 2-0 with the win and has outscored its opponents 20-0.

 

In other games that were decided by home runs Saturday, unbeaten Team Adidas (2-0) defeated the Bellaire Off-Season Cardinals 3-1 on a three-run, fourth-inning homer by third baseman Eric Grabe (Vanguard HS, Ocala, Fla.), his second of the tournament. Grabe also hit a pivotal solo homer Thursday as Team Adidas edged the Alabama Stars 2-1.

 

South Carolina’s Diamond Devils (2-0) got a tie-breaking two-run homer from DH Matt Price (Sumter, S.C., HS) in the bottom of the sixth inning to snap a 2-2 tie and lead the Diamond Devils to a 4-2 win over Southwest Florida Baseball. Price outdid himself later in the day by pitching a no-hitter, striking out 17, as the Diamond Devils defeated Virginia ’s Hurricanes Baseball 1-0 to go to 2-0.

 

Pitching Still Dominates

 

While dramatic home runs were the order of the day Saturday at the 80-team WWBA tournament, there was no shortage of top pitching performances—both high strikeout games and no-hitters.

 

The best performance—and one of the best pitching performances in tournament history—was turned in by the previously-unheralded Price, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound righthander who went the distance, walked one and struck out at least two batters in every inning. His fastball ranged from 87-90 mph.

 

Price struck out twice himself in the game as Hurricanes righthander Mikey O’Brien (Hidden Valley HS, Roanoke, Va.) nearly matched Price pitch-for-pitch, fanning 12 (including seven in a row at one point) and tossing a one-hitter while topping out at 92. The only run in the game scored on the game’s only hit, a fourth-inning RBI single by junior outfielder Daniel Aldrich (Wando HS, Mt. Pleasant, S.C.).

 

Mychel Givens (Plant HS, Tampa), rated by some scouts as the top prospect in the 2009 high school class—as a shortstop—was overpowering as a starting pitcher in a 4-1 win over the Colorado Slammers. He was clocked up to 94 mph and struck out six in two innings. That started a strikeout assault by four Winning Inning pitchers who combined on 19 in the game.

 

Ontario Blue Jays righthander Joey Ellison (Lorne Park SS, Mississauga, Ontario) tossed a complete-game, no-hitter, in a 3-0 win over Perfect Game Kelly Green. He walked two and struck out eight with a fastball between 79-82 mph.

 

Four pitchers combined on a second no-hitter for Chet Lemon’s Juice, which defeated Perfect Game Teal 8-0. Juice righthander Bryan Brown (Winter Springs, Fla., HS), who topped out at 87 mph, worked the first two innings, striking out three. Overall, Juice pitchers fanned 10.

 

18 Teams Remain Unbeaten, Untied

 

Pool play concludes Sunday with a 32-team championship bracket to follow, leading to Monday’s final game. The winners of the 20 pools automatically qualify, along with 12 at-large teams determined by various tie-breaking procedures.

 

The Braves Scout Team was the only team to conclude pool play Saturday with a 3-0 record and advance to the championship round.

 

Seventeen teams that were 2-0 at the end of play Saturday and primed to move on included Pennsylvania’s All-Star Baseball Academy, the Northeast’s Baseball U Prospects, the Boomtown (Okla.) Prospects, the Central Florida Renegades, Florida’s Chet Lemon’s Juice, the Diamond Devils, the East Cobb Astros, Florida Bombers Scout Team, Florida’s World of Baseball Angels, Florida’s Hammertime Warriors, North Carolina’s On Deck O’s, Maryland’s Orioles Scout Team, the Orlando Scorpions, the Richmond Braves, Team Adidas, the Tri-State (N.J.) Arsenal and California’s West Coast MVP Baseball. Those teams play their final pool play game Sunday morning.

 

To win the tournament, a team will have to win five straight playoff games in a 24-hour period.

 

DAY THREE NOTEBOOK

 

The pre-tournament favorite Texas Scout Team (2-1) lost 3-0 to the Florida Bombers Scout Team (2-0) in Saturday’s final session as righthander Joey Housey and lefthander Josh Gonzaga, both from Nova High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., combined on a three-hit shutout and 13 strikeouts. Housey, who was clocked at 89-90 mph, fanned eight in the first three innings and didn’t allow a hit . . . In another final session contest, the St. Louis Cardinals Scout Team (1-0-1) narrowly avoided the biggest upset in the tournament when it scored three times in the sixth and final inning against Northeast PG Steel (0-1-1) to salvage a 5-5 tie. A triple by outfielder J.P. Ramirez (Canyon HS, New Braunfels, Texas) drove in two runs and he scored on a wild pitch. The tie puts the Cardinals in good position to move onto bracket play from Pool 3 . . . California’s ABD Bulldogs (2-1), a perennial playoff team which reached the semi-finals in 2005 in its best tournament finish, was primed to become the first team to go to 3-0 but lost 4-3 to Georgia’s Homeplate Baseball (2-1) in its final pool play game. ABD took a 3-1 lead to the final inning but gave up three runs on a pair of ill-timed errors. It cannot win its pool with the loss but is in position to advance with a 2-1 record . . . Six players on the ABD roster—Nicholas Croce, James Dykstra, Trent Jemmett, Jesse Moore, Clark Murphy and Ryan O’Sullivan—all live in San Diego County and were forced to evacuate their homes during the recent wildfires that ravaged Southern California earlier this week. Dykstra’s home, in the Rancho Bernardo section of San Diego , was amazingly left standing while all those around it burned to the ground. Dykstra, a 2009 product, is the younger brother of Wake Forest first baseman Allan Dykstra, a potential first-round pick next June . . . The best-recorded pitching velocity on the day was 96 mph, turned in by Akadema (Ind.) Yankees righthander Daniel Webb (Heath HS, Paducah, Ky.) in a 4-3 loss to the 2004 WWBA champion Houston Heat (1-2). The 6-foot-3, 210-pound Webb, a potential second- or third-round pick in the 2008 draft, struggled in the game, giving up all four runs in 4-2/3 innings while walking six and striking out five. Winning Inning’s Givens, Texas Scout Team righthander Matt Graham (Oakridge HS, Spring, Texas), and Ohio Warhawks righthander Scott Weisman (Acton Boxborough HS, Boxborough, Mass.) were clocked at 94. Givens and Graham are 2009 products and projected first-rounders in that year’s draft. The best fastball in the tournament remains that of Braves Scout Team righthander Gerrit Cole (Orange Lutheran HS, Santa Ana, Calif.), who was clocked at 97 mph on Friday . . . Catcher Antonio Jimenez (Academia Discipolos de Cristo, Bayamon, P.R.) may have moved to the head of the pack among the high school talent in Puerto Rico for 2008 off his performance Saturday for Team Puerto Rico. Jimenez flashed one of the strongest arms in the tournament in back-picking Dirt Bags leadoff hitter Tyler Hanover (East Forsyth HS, Kernersville, N.C.) off third base and lining a curveball with 95 mph bat speed for a single to drive in his team’s only run in a 1-1 tie . . . Georgia PG Orange junior catcher Spencer Kieboom (Walton HS, Marietta, Ga.) produced one of the most unique lines in a 10-2 victory over the Atlanta Stars: 0-0-0-3. He had two sacrifice flies and a bases-loaded walk . . . Former major leaguer Rafael Palmeiro has been in attendance at the tournament. His son Patrick, a senior third baseman-outfielder from Colleyville (Texas ) High School, has hit in the cleanup position for the Dallas Tigers (0-2) and is 2-for-5 in his first two games.