Prep Baseball Report

Youth Players Take Center Stage At PBR Junior Future Games



By Jay Darnell

The Prep Baseball Report Future Games, which has always featured the top rising high school junior prospects in our coverage area, has quickly become one of the preeminent recruiting events in the country.

This year, in conjunction with the fourth-annual Future Games, we ran the inaugural Prep Baseball Report Junior Future Games at Grand Park in Westfield, IN, on July 31-August 3.  The Junior Future Games featured nearly 400 players, ages 9 through 14, and had representation from eight states: Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Ohio and Kentucky.

The Junior Future Games’ festivities commenced with the opening ceremonies on Thursday, with each player receiving their State Selection plaque, followed by skills competition for the 9u through 12u age groups.

The tournament started on Friday with two days of pool play, followed by single-elimination bracket play on Sunday.

At 9u, Team Iowa came out of pool play with the No. 1 seed, going 2-0-1. Team Illinois and Team Iowa both won their semifinals by eight runs to advance to the championship. Team Illinois won the title with a 9-6 victory in the championship game.

At 10u, in pool play both Team Illinois Royal and Team Indiana dominated the play by going 4-0 and 3-1, respectively. Bracket play, however, was a different story. Team Wisconsin, after going 1-3 in pool play, came to play on Sunday. They snuck by Team Missouri 9-8 and then handed Team Illinois Royal its only loss, 10-8, in the semifinals. The other side of the bracket saw Team Illinois Orange beat Team Iowa 11-3 and then get by Team Indiana 5-2 in the semifinals to advance to the championship. In a high scoring affair, Team Wisconsin outslugged Team Illinois Orange 12-9 to win the 10u championship.

In the 11u division, Team Kentucky went 4-0 in pool play, averaging over nine runs a game in the process. The division was so balanced talent-wise that each of the other five teams had a tie on the record during pool play. In bracket play, Kentucky continued its dominance at the plate by beating Team Missouri 16-6 in the semifinals. Team Illinois advanced to the championship in a different fashion, by using their pitching and defense. They beat Team Wisconsin 3-2 in the quarterfinals and then got by Team Indiana 3-0 to set up the championship game as offense vs defense. Team Illinois used its pitching and defense to stop the hot bats of Team Kentucky and take the championship game 3-1.

The 12u division was dominated from the opening ceremonies to the championship games on Sunday by Team Illinois Orange. Both the top two pitching velocities and home run derby finalists were on Team Illinois Orange. They went 4-0 in pool play and beat Team Missouri in the championship 9-1. Team Missouri made a nice run on Sunday, scoring 13 runs in the quarterfinals and 11 runs in the semifinals.

The 13u and 14u divisions had a busy day on Friday, opening with two pool play games and the instructional showcase mixed into their game schedule. The 2017 and 2018 classes will be well represented with players that attended this year’s Junior Future Games.

In the 13u division, pool play was very competitive with five teams all finishing within a game of each other. The semifinals were played very similar to pool play. Team Missouri beat Team Ohio 4-0 in the first semifinal while Team Indiana Gold beat Team Indiana Red 7-6 in the other semifinal. In the championship, Team Indiana Gold jumped out early and took the title with a 9-4 win.

The final division of the weekend was the 14u age group. Team Illinois Royal and Team Wisconsin came out of pool play as the top two seeds and both teams then advanced to the championship game. Team Wisconsin won two games on Sunday, including a 10-4 victory over highly touted Team Indiana. Team Illinois Royal just got by Team Missouri 6-5 in their semifinal and went on to beat Team Wisconsin 7-4 in the championship.

Premium Content Area

This article is only available to PBRPlus Subscribers. If you wish to continue reading this article:

Login to the Subscriptions Website.
To purchase a NEW SUBSCRIPTION, please click here to go to our subscription products page.