FORT MYERS, Fla. – The age-old saying goes something along the line that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
In the case of the CCB 2022 Prime out of Northern California, they were not only willing to get on their horse and gallop all the way across the country, but once they got here they allowed themselves to drink-in just about everything offered to them by the gallon – and then some.
The CCB 2022 Prime, with its base of operations in San Jose, Calif. – nearly 3,000 miles to the west in the San Francisco Bay area – the allure of participating in the 19th annual Perfect Game WWBA Underclass World Championship was too powerful to deny.
After a summer of frustration brought on by lockdowns, shutdowns and endless restrictions due to the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic, these players, their families and their coaches needed to get away and play some meaningful baseball for the first time in eight months.
And while they’re here, the CCB 2022 Prime also decided to put their best foot forward. They went a perfect 3-0-0 during pool-play and charged into the first round of the 48-team playoffs as the No. 20 seed after outscoring their pool opponents by a combined 23-5. With apologies to Neil Young, in the field of opportunity it was plowing time again.
“Coach (Erick Raich) put it on the schedule and I was pretty excited about coming over here,” standout shortstop William Kinney told PG on Saturday, speaking from the Lee County Player Development 5-Plex. “I knew that school would conflict and that would be a factor, too, about coming.
“But then we got the school situation figured out and it was fine after that. I was excited to get out here and play because in California we really can’t play anywhere besides practice.”
Head Director of California Club Baseball and CCB 2022 Prime head coach Erick Raich had never brought a team to Fort Myers before and the PG WWBA Underclass World Championship was an event he had long had his sights on. The trip wasn’t really feasible in years past because the players would have had to miss so much time away from their respective classrooms.
The pandemic changed that dynamic this year with all of the California schools resorting to distance learning. Raich worked with PG tournament officials to see if they schedule their Thursday and Friday games around the time when the players needed to be in class and, as Kinney noted, the details were able to be worked out.
“If there’s a year to do this it’s this year because we can structure the games around our classes,” Raich told PG on Saturday. “So we said, hey, who’s on board to do this? There’s not much we can do in California right now – we been having to constantly leave the state to play – and we had a good core nucleus of guys so we decided to make this happen.”
This CCB 2020 Prime team does have a bit more of a national feel to it for this event, however. The roster is filled-out with 2022 prospects like Andrew Behnke (t-500) from Tennessee, Jack Killelea from South Carolina, Hayden Lewis (t-1000, Nebraska) from Nebraska and Justin Walker (Follow) out of Nevada.
And then there are the pitchers Elias Hachem and Julien Hachem, twin brothers and, it could be said, twin towers out of Oak Park, Ill. Elias is a 6-foot-7, 230 pound righthander ranked No. 275 nationally while Julien is a 6-foot-8, 235 pound lefty who is ranked No. 215 and has committed to Oklahoma.
They fit-in nicely with the NorCal core, top players like Kinney, a 5-foot-5, 130 pound high-follow shortstop from Pacifica who has been known to provide a spark from the top of the order. Colin Spear, a 6-foot-2, 200 pound high follow corner-infielder from San Francisco played lights-out during pool-play and top-500 righthander/corner-infielder/outfielder Liam Thompson – a 6-foot-7, 210 pounder from Campbell – can also be a force at whatever position he’s inserted.
Those guys are the backbone of this team. Kinney is in his third season with CCB and he wouldn’t trade his experiences with the program for any other.
“It’s been really beneficial,” he said. “Just being around these guys I learn (something) new every day and the program has really helped me grow as a baseball player and as a person. You can relate it to real life, too, and not just the baseball world. These guys are just great to be around.”
Spear can do Kinney one better. He’s been with CCB since he was a seventh-grader and offers that fact as proof to how amazing the experience has been for him.
“I started out with the youth program and then moved on to coach Raich and it’s been just like family ever since; it’s been the best thing ever,” he said before going on to describe the personality of this particular ballclub.
“It’s a lot of fun; it’s just so energetic. Everyone’s cracking jokes in the dugout and even with the new kids we just mold well together. It’s a connection that you can’t really get (everywhere) … and it’s just fun; that’s really what it is.”
There are several other key contributors who make their home in the NorCal region, guys like third baseman/outfielder JC Agard, a high follow out of Hayward and top-1,000 catcher/third baseman Caovinh Nguyen from Fremont.
“We’ve primarily stayed in the Northern California area; we’ve always stayed close to our roots,” Raich said when describing the makeup of his roster. “We were kind of in that middle ground where we had enough guys but we didn’t have, I thought, a solid enough roster to compete at a high level at (PG) national tournament.
“I have some people I can talk to and reach out to, and they gave me some names of scouts, and we reached out to some guys from out of state who were able to come on (board).”
The Hachems attended the PG Underclass All-American Games in Marietta, Ga., at the end of August, and scouts suggested they try to catch-on with a team that planned on being at the WWBA Underclass World Championship.
This event would provide them with another opportunity to perform in front of a whole lot of PG scouts and CCB turned out to be the perfect fit. And it only made sense that the twins would do this in lockstep.
“We do a lot of things together,” Julien said of the relationship he has with Elias. “We’re brothers so we argue a lot but we love each other. We’re usually neck-and-neck with things and if I do good and he does bad, I just feel like telling him to do better. We’re competitive but we just want what’s best for each other.”
The three pool-play victories presented somewhat of a mixed bag offensively but all three had one thing in common: strong pitching performances.
In the opener on Thursday, a 3-2 walk-off win over the Palm Beach Select 2022, '22 lefthander Evan Sacher and ’22 righty Kaito Haake combined on a one-hitter. Sacher allowed one run on no hits while walking three in two innings and Haake gave up a run on one hit with two strikeouts and one walk.
That game was tied at 2 going into the bottom of the seventh but ended when Jack Killelea and Brady Wetzel received one-out walks, quickly pulled-off a double-steal and Killelea was chased home by a sac fly off the bat of Andrew Behnke.
“I knew the first game was going to be a little bit rough because we just have not been able to play,” Raich said. “For our guys this is maybe their 15th game that they’ve played since July. We’re playing teams that have probably played 50 to 60 games so I knew on the offensive side we would probably be a little bit behind.”
Game two on Friday, a 9-0 win over 5 Star Performance 2022 Texas, was a real keeper, both from the mound and at the plate.
Julien Hachem was, quite literally, unhittable, throwing a six-inning no-hitter with 11 strikeouts and one walk while facing just 20 batters, two over the minimum. He walked the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the first then retired the next 17 he faced; the streak ended when the 18th reached on an error.
“That was one of those games where you just stay out of the way and let him do his thing,” Raich said. “You spot a guy like that an early lead and he’s allowed to pitch aggressively like that, he did a fantastic job.”
What most impressed Raich was the athleticism and body control Julien showed coming from a young man who already stands 6-foot-8. There was just something about the way he was able to handle himself on the mound despite being so long and lanky that really stood out to the veteran coach.
“He’s got a good feel for multiple pitches, the projectability is there,” Raich said. “I think if he continues to get better he’s got the opportunity to play professional baseball at some point.”
The 2020 Prime scored their nine runs on seven hits (all singles) and 10 walks with William Kinney and Justin Walker each collecting a pair of safeties.
Saturday brought an 11-3, pool championship-clinching win over Team Elite 2020 National, a game in which Elias Hachem got the start. He allowed two runs on two hits with four K’s and five walks in 3 1/3 before giving way to ’22 righty Adam Stothard, who gave up a run without allowing a hit while striking out 3 and walking two.
Colin Spear and Avery Isola were the hitting stars in this one with both contributing a double, a single, two RBI and two runs scored.
“Pitching-wise, I obviously could not be more happy,” Raich said of the pool-play wins. “With the wood bat, I told our guys that we just need to attack the zone a lot; it favors you as a pitcher when we go to a wood bat tournament.
“Our defense behind our pitchers is usually pretty good, so if we throw strikes and play catch I think that keeps us in every game. And offensively we can execute and try to scrap for runs whenever needed.”
Like most coaches at the travel ball level, Raich first emphasizes to his players the importance of learning that wins and losses aren’t as important as learning to not worry about things that are out of their control. If they’re on the field executing the fundamentals in the manner with which they’ve been taught then if the desirable outcome doesn’t materialize it’s not their fault.
“If we’re having good at-bats but we’re making outs, we can live with that,” he said. “If we’re throwing strikes and competing in the zone and (taking care of) our responsibilities but you’re getting hit, that’s OK too.
“The winning and losing will take care of itself but if you can control the factors that are within your control you’re going to be consistent and you’re always going to be in every game.”
Yes, the spring and summer of 2020 have been filled with challenges and roadblocks every step of the way for high school baseball players from all across the country, but these kids from California have faced a disproportionate share, or so it seems.
They’ve been forced to become baseball bootleggers, in Raich’s words, and any youngster in a similar situation would have been tempted to mail it in with all the challenges they’ve had to overcome.
Raich is rightly proud of every one of them, mostly because they have continued to find ways to get better and ways to keep pace with their peers in other parts of the country who have logged a lot more game-time than they’ve been able to. They’re competitors at heart, after all, so no one should expect anything else.
The CCB 2020 Prime traveled from Northern California to Southwest Florida with one thing in mind, and that’s to live and to learn. And it can be said that in just a few days-time, they’ve managed to do both.
“You can always learn from everyone,” the diminutive, almost Jose Altuve-like Kinney said. “Looking at all these teams, you can see great players and then compare yourself to them and you can see how you fit on the spectrum. It’s a great experience coming out here.”
Go ahead and lead this horse to water and just watch how much fun they have taking as many drinks as the opportunity will allow.