ANTHEM, Ariz. – The start of Monday afternoon’s PG Coach Bob National Invitational Tournament National Division game between Key West (Fla.) High School and West Linn (Ore.) High School was delayed for about 20 minutes after one of the most unusual occurrences many of the more than two dozen scouts in attendance had ever seen.
Junior right-hander Gregory Veliz, the Key West starter with the electric power-arm, had just thrown his last warmup pitch and turned his back to face second base. At that moment his catcher unleashed the standard throw down to second base and the ball struck Veliz squarely in the back of the head. Both the sight and the sound of the impact caused the entire large crowd to gasp in unison.
Veliz took three steps off the mound, staggered slightly and then went down to his knees. He was finally helped off the field and everyone waited anxiously for a trainer to clear him to return to the game after it had been determined he wasn’t displaying any symptoms of a concussion.
Seemingly unfazed, Veliz came back out locked-in, and behind the strength of a fastball that topped-out at 96 mph, he promptly struck out the one, two and three hitters in West Linn’s formidable lineup.
And that’s just the way things have been rolling for Veliz and the Conchs most of this season. An opponent – or even a teammate – might be able to knock them down but there just doesn’t seem to be a sure-fire way of knocking them out.
It just might be time for the other 14 teams competing in the PG CBNIT National Division to find that out. Key West is one of 114 high school teams that attended this year’s two-week Coach Bob Invite and is the first school from Florida to be involved with the event in its seven year history. The Conchs just might be on a mission.
“Coming out here has been great with the beautiful weather,” Veliz said before he was plunked in the back of the head, flashing a smile while the hitter in him came to the forefront. “The ball flies out here, and I like that as a two-way guy. It’s fun seeing new faces, new people, new scouts; everything. We’re trying to represent our high school and our state, and that whole section of the United States; we’re excited.”
Head coach Ralph Henriquez took the Conchs to a tournament in Tennessee during spring break a year ago, but he had heard about the Coach Bob Invite previously and was intrigued. He spoke with Chris Valdez, one of his assistant coaches who has done work with Perfect Game for more than 15 years, and they decided this would be a great trip for the team if they could raise enough money to pull it off.
They were able to reach their fund-raising goal and they left for the Desert Southwest last weekend. The team piled into a bus and rode the nearly 200 miles from Key West to Fort Lauderdale, and then flew directly from Fort Lauderdale to Phoenix. The total trip covered more than 2,500 miles.
“It was a long trip … but thank God we’re here,” Henriquez said. “Now we can just have fun out here and play some baseball. We play a lot of home games in Key West because we attract a lot of (college) programs in Florida who want to come see us.
“We use this as a tool to prepare our kids for the state playoffs, to be able to play away (from home), so this is a good thing.”
Veliz, a University of Miami commit listed at 6-foot-2, 200-pounds, throws in the mid-90s from the mound with his right arm and hits for power and average from the left side. He worked five one-hit innings, allowed only one unearned run, and struck out nine without issuing a walk in the 5-2 win over West Linn.
That outcome left the Conchs 11-5 this season while Veliz improved to 5-0 with a 1.53 ERA, and 62 strikeouts and just six walks in 32 innings pitched. He is also hitting .346 (18-for-52) with two home runs, three triples, five doubles, 21 RBI and 15 runs scored.
“It’s going good … and I’m hitting the ball very good; I feel like I’m starting to get real hot right now,”
Veliz said before going 0-for-4 against Quartz Hill. “I have been pitching pretty well and I haven’t lost yet, and we’re doing pretty well as a team, which is the most important thing.”
Key West finished 26-4-1 last year and advanced to the FHSAA Class 4A regional finals. The Conchs graduated three of their biggest bats from that team in Darren Miller, who signed with Florida State; Steven Wells, who is on his way to FSU via Santa Fe Community College and Hugo Valdez. Those three combined for 10 home runs, nine triples, 27 doubles, 79 RBI and 64 runs scored in their senior season.
This year’s Conchs boast a stronger pitching staff than last year’s team while possibly lacking the offensive punch of last year’s lineup. The staff is led by the junior Veliz; 6-foot-3, 225-pound senior right-hander Andrew Freeman; 6-foot-6, 220-pound senior left-hander Brandon Presley, and 6-foot-4, 215-pound righty Kyle Pierce, who is headed to Indian River Junior College.
Through 16 games, Presley is 2-2 with a 0.88 ERA, Pierce is 2-1/3.59 and Freeman 0-2/2.67. On the offensive side, seniors Anthony Henriquez and Jay Feathers, and junior Hunter Sellers are all hitting .353 or better; the Conchs are hitting .309 as a team.
“We’re a little bit different ball club this year than last year, but we have some kids that are pretty special pitching,” Henriquez said. “We’ve got some interesting guys that can pitch and that’s what we try to build our wins off of is pitching and defense and then executing on offense a little bit to get some runs on the board.”
Key West High School, which this season is playing in Florida Class 4A District 16 with Gulliver Prep and four other schools, has had more success than any other school in Florida high school history with 11 state championships and five state runner-up finishes. Five of those state titles came in the 1950s, however, and the Conchs’ last state championship was won in 2005.
Henriquez coached the Conchs to championships in 1995, 1996 and 2005 and a runner-up finish in 1994. He left the school for about seven years before returning just last season. The storied history of the program isn’t lost on young players like Veliz.
“There is nothing like playing for Key West High School,” Veliz said. “It’s a different brand of baseball and when you come to Key West you’ve been playing with these kids your whole life; it’s a hometown thing.”
Perfect Game ranks Veliz as the No. 21 overall national prospect in the class of 2016 and No. 6 in the state of Florida. He has attended 19 Perfect Game events since his debut in June 2012 and is already highly decorated, at both showcase events and at PG WWBA and PG BCS tournaments while playing for Richie Palmer and the Pembroke Pines, Fla.-based Elite Squad Baseball.
Last year alone he was named the Most Valuable Player at the 16u PG BCS Finals and to the all-tournament team at the 17u PG WWBA National Championship. He was also named to the Top Prospect List at the 2014 PG Junior National Showcase and the 2013 PG National Underclass Showcase-Main Event. It was his lights-out performance at the Jr. National that prompted this PG writer to tag Veliz with the nickname “The Key West Express”.
“I’m definitely pleased with my progression,” he said Monday. “I’ve been working hard during the offseason just getting ready to go because everybody’s getting bigger and faster every day. Especially being in Key West (the scouts) don’t see you all the time so you have to be ready to go when the opportunity comes.”
Henriquez has seen plenty of fine, young ballplayers put on a Key West Conchs’ uniform over the years – 13 former Conchs have been drafted out of high school since 1994 and many more have moved on to college – and he realizes he has something special in Veliz. He’s a 17-year-old junior that throws very hard but there is still room for improvement.
“We’ve been working with him in developing secondary pitches and we like the way his changeup is coming along,” Henriquez said. “The other night he threw five innings and had 12 strikeouts and four of the 12 strikeouts came off of his changeup. That’s something that we’re working with, to get him to have command of another pitch along with his fastball.”
This is definitely a working spring break for the Conchs, although they did get out to Camelback Ranch in Glendale for a Los Angeles Dodgers spring training game and also went out to a team dinner at Don & Charlie’s, a popular steakhouse and barbeque restaurant in Scottsdale famous for its collection of sports memorabilia. There are three or four of the players’ families that made the trip west, as well.
“We’re going to mix in having some fun with the kids but our focus is playing baseball and preparing for our state playoffs,” Henriquez said.
“Hopefully I do well, hopefully my teammates do well and they get some colleges looking them,” Veliz said of the week in the desert. “Other than that, I’m just going to enjoy the weather and enjoy the baseball.”
And, almost certainly, keep his head out of the way of errant throws at all times.