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PG Select Baseball Festival  | General  | 8/6/2018

14u National sends 16 to Select

Bryan Cooney     
Photo: Calvert Clark (Perfect Game)

14u PG Select Roster Reveal 14u PG Select Festival Rosters

FORT MYERS, Fla. – The second edition of the 14u National Showcase brought out the top players across the country in the 2021, 2022 and 2023 classes to come together at the Spring Training home of the Boston Red Sox, jetBlue Park in Fort Myers.

As one of the top events in which top performers displayed their talents to the Perfect Game Staff, a total of 16 participants from the 14u Showcase were tabbed to be on the rosters for the upcoming 2018 14u PG Select Baseball Festival. The third edition of the 14u PG Select event takes place from August 30 culminating with the game to be played on September 2 at jetBlue Park.

This year’s 14u National Showcase was an invite-only event, with players being chosen to come to Southwest Florida based off of their efforts in regional showcases that occurred from March through May across six regions of the U.S. Other participants earned their way to the National Showcase due to their performances in select tournaments across the calendar year in WWBA, BCS and Super25 tournaments featuring top programs from around the country.

The 16 players that were selected to participate in the 14u PG Select Baseball Festival after attending the 14u PG National Showcase are as follows:

• Loreto Siniscalchi (2021, Burnaby, British Columbia)
• Riley Stanford (2022, Gainesville, Ga.)
• Armando Cruz (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
• Lucas Torres (2021, Cayey, Puerto Rico)
• Ryan Ward (2022, Coronado, Calif.)
• Sal Stewart (2022, Miami, Fla.)
• Renzo Gonzalez (2021, Carolina, Puerto Rico)
• Grant Hussey (2021, Parkersburg South, W.Va.)
• Andruw Jones (2022, Suwanee, Ga.)
• Calvert Clark (2022, Charlotte, N.C.)
• Dylan Lesko (2022, Buford, Ga.)
• Rylan Galvan (2022, Sinton, Texas)
• Rene Galvan (2022, Sinton, Texas)
• Manuel Beltre (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
• Elijah Green (2022, Windermere, Fla.)
• Cole Young (2022, Wexford, Pa.)

Perfect Game National Crosschecker Jheremy Brown felt that the introduction of the regional showcases that took place in the South (Tomball, Texas), Southeast (Emerson, Ga.), West (Compton, Calif.), Midwest (St. Charles, Ill.), Florida (West Palm Beach, Fla.) and the Northeast (Staten Island, N.Y.) provided better opportunites for players to get on the radar. In many cases those events provided Perfect Game with a first look at a prospect, and in others, allowed another look to examine the top 14u prospects across the country to earn a place in the 14u PG Select Baseball Festival in September.

“Implementing the 14u regional showcases with six across the country allowed us to segment kids according to their region and invite them to the National Showcase a couple months down the road,” Brown said. “By doing that, we first see these players and identify them to get to know a little bit about them and then see them down in Fort Myers and see that they took that jump that you hope which earns them an invite to the Festival.

“It’s an idea we definitely want to build on for next year because it’s a good starting block to put some names together and help fill the National Showcase and set the bar even higher next year for the Festival.”

Casting its reach across the country will bring in players from states and countries that will be represented for the first time at the Festival in 2018. Hussey and Blaise Grove will represent West Virginia; Lorenzo Carrier (2021, Bear, Del.) will represent Delaware; Aeden Finateri (2021, Watertown, Conn.) will represent Connecticut; Siniscalchi represents Canada for the first time and Andre Arthur (2022, Nassau, Bahamas) will represent the Bahamas at the Festival.

The final selections were announced by Perfect Game’s Darren Sutton on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM’s MLB Roundtrip late Sunday evening with the complete 44-man rosters being introduced. This year a new twist to the event will not pit the East against the West. Instead, the two teams will be under the guidance of two former big leaguers in former all-star pitchers Tom “Flash” Gordon and Scott Erickson. The two combined for 36 years of experience at the major league level and will undoubtedly provide guidance and wisdom for their respective teams in September.

With the success of the first two years of the 14u PG Select Baseball Festival producing multiple Division I commits, Brown touts this cast of players as potentially a better crop of talent in terms of physicality and velocity on the mound at the present time and in the years to come.

“When you look and watch these players, you have to remember that still only 14 years old and some of them aren’t even in high school yet,” Brown said. “The talent level keeps exceeding what you would think it would be at a 14-year old event. We had multiple guys in the mid- to upper-80s plus and some bats that you see that are pretty good and some that you say, it’s going to be really good as they develop.

“This year, we had college coaches in attendance which we didn’t really have last year and they’re able to follow up with them. They really liked what they saw and it allows them to build their bigger picture in what they want to ultimately recruit.”

Notable names that will be on the big stage come September include Andruw Jones, the son of five-time all-star and 10-time Gold Glove winner of the same name. Two sets of identical twins in the Galvan brothers, Rylan and Rene, and Tristan Smith (2022, Chesnee, S.C.) and Ashton Smith (2022, Chesnee, S.C.) will also play in the game. Ethan Anderson (2022, Virginia Beach, Va.) was the first player to commit to college from the class of 2022 (Virginia). Brady House (2021, Winder, Ga.) and Christian Little (2021, St. Louis, Mo.), who participated in last year’s 14u PG Select Baseball Festival, will be back for another go-around.