EMERSON, Ga. — Midwest baseball has made a statement in the South, as the Chicago-based Chi-Town Cream sealed the top spot in Pool E during the 18u WWBA National Championship by way of three shutouts and several high-scoring wins, including a four-inning 18-1 victory over the Fungo Red Sox Wednesday.
While the Southeast historically dominating the 18u WWBA National Championship, the Chi-Town Cream will make the mix for the title an interesting one.
“We have a really good pitching staff, our strengths are pitching and defense” said head coach Chuck Reeder. “This [offense today] was an abnormal thing. This is our second tournament of the year. We’ve won two 2-1 games and a 3-1 game yesterday.”
Five of Cream’s pitching staff has contributed to the strong overall performance on the week, including outings from Wes Bizzle, Steven Washilewski, Brett Wiklund, Max Meyer and Andre James – who threw a complete-game five-hit shutout on Monday.
Aside from a few players out of Tennessee and Florida, most of the team resides in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana and Iowa. This year’s 18u team comes down to Georgia with nine D-I commits, with four signing in the Big Ten.
“I have to thread a needle, I want them good, legit D-I guys, but not so good that they’re going to get drafted and leave me,” said Reeder explaining his recruiting process.
Several of those D-I commits include Memphis-bound third baseman Zach Mettetal and fellow teammate and brother Tyler Mettetal, a left-handed pitcher heading to South Carolina in the fall.
There’s also righty Austin Marozas, ranked the top pitcher and No. 2 overall player in Illinois by Perfect Game. His 6-foot-7 frame will add depth to Kentucky’s pitching staff next season.
Although pitching and defense has been the ticket for most of the tournament, the offense generated up and down the lineup Wednesday proved this team can play both sides of the baseball. One of those standouts was Zach Mettetal, who went a perfect 4-for-4 with five RBIs and two runs scored on the day.
“[I] just want to play as hard as I can, run balls out as hard as I can, just be a good team player and barrel up some balls and get some good ABs in and have some fun,” said Mettetal.
Another teammate with a hot day at the plate was Iowa commit and shortstop Zion Pettigrew, who went 2-for-4 with two runs scored.
“I’m working on seeing better competition,” said Pettigrew. “It’s nice to see better pitching, because you don’t see a lot of good D1 arms in Chicago. You’ll probably run into one or two good guys, but down here it feels like everyone is throwing 85 plus.”
With most of their summer circuit surrounding the Illinois and Indiana area; the WWBA National Championship is a chance for Chi-Town to see some new competition.
“Down here everyone is pretty solid,” said Zach Mettetal. “We play a team that’s not supposed to be good, and they’re still pretty solid. But up by us, you get a bad team, and they are bad. [Down here] you got to bring it to the ballpark everyday, and that’s what makes it fun.”
While the game of baseball stays relatively the same no matter where in the world it is played, geography can vary greatly.
“The two big things are the weather and the fields are a lot better,” said Pettigrew. “We probably play on a turf field every so often, but even the dirt fields in East Cobb are a lot better than the ones we have. Especially if it rains over there like it did in East Cobb, in Chicago, we’re not playing."
This isn’t Cream’s first trip down to East Cobb; as they experienced success last summer during the 18u WWBA National Championship.
“This is the biggest tournament on our schedule every year,” said Reeder, who is in his ninth year coaching 18u. “Last year we lost in the semi-finals, so we came in third in the tournament. Last year was our best summer ever record wise, so I thought it was going to be a hard summer to duplicate, but we are sort of on the door step of doing it.”
With the chance to breakthrough this summer and make it to the championship, Chi-Town will be able to rely on a handful of returning players from last year’s run.
“It’s always a good time,” said Zach Mettetal. “I’ve been coming to this event for four years now. The past teams I’ve been on we’ve had two top-three finishes, so we definitely want to win this one, it’s fun playing people from all over.”