FORT MYERS, Fla. – It’s come, it’s seen and it’s conquered. Well, so far anyway, and time’s rapidly running out on the competition.
Cannons Baseball Academy 2022 American, an outfit based in Fort Lauderdale on Florida’s east coast, has pretty much had its way at the Perfect Game 15u BCS National Championship the last six days.
And, in bad news for the other seven teams still standing, the Cannons are showing no signs of slowing down as they move into Tuesday’s quarterfinal round, and possibly the semifinal round, in the event’s Championship Bracket.
“This has been a great experience,” top 2022 corner-infielder Adrian Dominguez told Perfect Game Monday morning, not long after CBA 2022 American had won its first-round playoff game at Terry Park. “We’ve been hitting the ball, we’ve been pitching good, everyone’s doing their job; we’re just playing as a good ball team.”
Good ball team, indeed. The Cannons unleashed their firepower on six pool-play opponents over the first five days of the tournament, outscoring their first three foes by a combined 23-5 and their next three by a 28-1 margin.
That combined 51-6 output was more than good enough to earn them the No. 1 seed in the Championship Bracket, the top tier playoff bracket among the three being contested; CBA 2022 American takes a 7-0-0 record into the quarters.
“It’s great competition. All these guys out here want to do the same thing we’re doing, competing for a title,” highly regarded 2022 third baseman/outfielder/right-hander Derek Bermudez told PG on Monday. “We’ve got a great group of guys here. Our bats are really good, our pitching is really good and right now we’re playing really good so (hopefully) it’s all going to work out.”
This is not a club lacking for star power, as PG’s most recent class of 2022 national prospect rankings attest. The low numbers are almost dizzying.
Left-hander Brandon Barriera leads the prospect parade, coming in at No. 4 overall (No. 1 LHP). Dominguez is next at No. 65; right-hander/outfielder Evan Dobias, a Virginia commit, is at No. 86 (No. 20 RHP) and Bermudez is right behind at No. 90.
Bermudez’s twin brother, outfielder/ third baseman Raymond Bermudez, is a Miami commit ranked No. 101. Corner-infielder/right-hander Brandon Gonsalves is at No. 129 and catcher Dean Guzman at No. 166.
Nick James established Cannons Baseball Academy in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2006 and moved the operation south to Fort Lauderdale in 2010 when he became head coach at Westminster Academy. It was more of a smaller, local organization in its early years, but as the program grew James added teams and started taking a more regional and national approach.
CBA now fields seven teams and two of them – 2022 American and 2022 National – are at the 15u BCS National Championship. The CBA 2022 Nationals finished 3-3-0 in pool-play and are competing in the playoffs’ Platinum Bracket.
“Perfect Game provides some of the best opportunities for players in terms of exposure and competition so we definitely wanted to get involved,” James said.
Even as the Cannons Baseball Academy 2022 American team takes a step onto the national stage with all of its nationally ranked prospects in tow, the roster remains local at its core.
James said most of the players live within a half-hour drive of one another and many of them are classmates/teammates at the same high school, with Westminster Academy, American Heritage, North Broward Prep and West Broward getting the most representation.
“A lot of them grew up playing with us and there’s a contingent of guys who just grew up playing in (local) leagues together,” James continued. “As they continue to get older, talented players like to be around other talented players.”
During the first team meeting at the beginning of season, James and the others on his coaching staff knew right away that this was a roster that was capable of winning a lot of baseball games. The biggest challenge they faced was getting the players to understand that playing time was going to have to be shared, and as the weeks rolled by, he came to realize that every one of them was on board.
“That’s the one thing that I talk about with this team is just their selflessness,” the head coach said. “They don’t mind giving up their at-bats for the other guys, they don’t mind sharing innings. We have a lot of talent – they’re all talented players at their high schools – and they’ve all grown up where maybe they were the three-hole hitter and the shortstop on their little league teams.
“That can be the biggest challenge sometimes and I could not be more pleased with what they’ve done and the chemistry they’ve created on the field together.”
This is a team that’s doing a lot of things very well right now, and even with the gaudy run totals, James said it all starts with the pitching and defense. He’s got arms that pound the zone, the capable fielders are stepping up and making the routine plays, and those two things combined with a lineup that doesn’t drop-off 1-through-13 makes for a powerful potion.
“We’re comfortable rolling 13 guys out there to swing it and we’re comfortable putting nine guys on the mound,” James said. “Obviously we have a few elite, high-level arms … and it’s amazing when you have talent who learns how to play together; they’re selfless and they’re not worried about who’s getting the credit.”
There was evidence of that depth in the Cannons’ 7-2 first-round playoff win over the No. 16 Canes Prospects 15u Monday morning, a game in which CBA 2022 American totaled 11 hits.
Derek Bermudez singled twice and scored a pair of runs; Eric Blair tripled, singled, drove in a run and scored two; Jonathan Xuereb doubled and singled, and picked up two RBI; Guzman singled twice with an RBI and a run scored; Jake Clemente contributed a pair of singles.
Bermudez and Blair hit 4-5 in the order and the others all hit farther down. James also used four pitchers who combined on an eight-strikeout six-hitter; the Canes scored both their runs in the top of the seventh when the outcome was all but decided.
“Everybody here, they all do their job, (all through) the lineup and whoever steps out on the mound,” Bermudez said. “We feed off each other in the way that everybody has great energy here and we all want to play for each other; we all just want to get wins.”
“We just try to play the game right,” Dominguez added. “We play the game as hard as we can and we play the game with our hearts. … This is like our fifth tournament this summer and we know each other really well; we’re like brothers.”
These “brothers” will face No. 9 Team Elite 15u Scout Team (6-1-0) in one of four Champion Bracket quarterfinals scheduled for 8 a.m. starts at the jetBlue Park Player Development Complex on Tuesday.
All five of the top-seeded teams advanced to the quarters, including No. 2 BBA National (7-0-0), which is based in Marlboro, N.J. The Georgia-based Team Elite program has two teams in the quarters, the No. 9 15u Scout Team (6-1-0) and the No. 10 15u Prime (6-1-0). It truly is an “elite eight” and James is confident his Cannons will continue to thunder.
“They just love to play the game of baseball,” he said. “We’re going to play whoever’s on the schedule, we’re going to play whoever’s in front of us and we’re going to work on three things: Controlling our attitude, our energy and our effort. If we can do those things, win or lose, that’s really all we can ask of teenagers these days.”
Bermudez doesn’t sound like a young player who wants to let his coach down: “One step at a time, one game at a time, one inning at a time,” he added. “We don’t want to look too far ahead but we definitely are aware of what we’ve got here. We just have to take it one step at a time.”