End-of-the-Month Roundup: December

Before officially closing the book on 2018, let’s take a look back at all of the news and notes that made waves in the state last month by compiling them into one big post. We’ve condensed December’s stories, both from a local and national perspective, into a bulleted list below. While this may be the offseason for some, baseball hardly ever sleeps for our team. PBR made national headlines within the game when we announced a long-term partnership with LakePoint, the country’s preeminent baseball facility.

More locally, we updated our Class of 2021 Rankings and broke down all of the 2019 prospects who have made commitments in the state, in addition to breaking down Illinois’ in-state collegiate programs and their 2019 recruiting classes.

For links on the aforementioned stories, in addition to plenty more news and notes, keep on reading.

STATE CLASS OF 2021 RANKINGS

• Top-10 Story

• Newcomers

• Just Missed

ILLINOIS’ 2019 SIGNING PERIOD

• We broke down each and every one of the state’s Division-I programs and listed their committed 2019 talent from across the country: Part One | Part Two

• There’s also a handful of talented D-II programs in the state and they were busy recruiting talent from the region, too: D-II story.

• There are 100 state seniors with D-I baseball commitments. We covered them at length here.

• Illinois is also sending over 120 prospects to D-II, D-III, and NAIA destinations next fall.

• There were also 140-plus prospects from Illinois who are headed to JUCO programs. We laid out where they’re headed in full detail.

• Lastly, there were prospects who made their commitments in December. We covered them in our bi-weekly Recruiting Roundup: 12/1 to 12/14 | 12/15 to 12/31.

TOP-10 PLAYER PROFILES OF 2018

1. Alek Thomas

2. Zaid Walker

3. Vytas Valincius

4. Quinn Priester

5. Matt McCormick

6. Jason Hodges

7. Jacob Maton

8. Francois Castillo

9. Trevor Davis

10. Ben Wiegman

TOP-10 STORYLINES OF 2018

1. Plainfield North's dramatic 4A win

2. Potters pour it on to win 3A state

3. Alek Thomas thrives in pro debut

4. Matt McCormick earns PBR IL POTY

5. Hall defeats reigning champs

6. Aurora Christian wins 1A title

7. Neuqua gets 22 straight wins

8. Payton Hutchings Sets IHSA Record

9. 2nd annual area PBR Kickoff Classic

10. PBR Partners With Rimrock/Bullpen Tournaments

NATIONAL POV

• PBR announced a long-term partnership with Rimrock Capital Management and the LakePoint baseball facility in Emerson, Ga., where we’ll be hosting some of the country’s top prep tournaments throughout 2019. You can find the press release here and the complete list of all of PBR’s 2019 tournaments here.

• National Crosschecker Shooter Hunt has been laying out 2019 recruiting classes, conference by conference: ACC (Atlantic) | ACC (Coastal) | Big Ten (East) | Pac-12 (North) | Pac-12 (South)

• Our PBR National team released the first version of its 2019 PBR Draft Board.

• More Draft notes: D1baseball.com’s Kendall Rogers bylined the college prospects rising headed into the spring.

• Nathan Rode, with the help of the country’s scouting directors, published lists of on-the-rise prep prospects in both the 2020 and 2021 classes.

• The national team also updated the Class of 2020’s overall rankings, too.

PBR DRAFT HQ

• Coffee & Curveballs has been further detailing the college recruiting classes and their 2019 commits.

• The same goes for the Official PBR Podcast, outlining the Big 12 and Big Ten conference in-depth.

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