Florida, Texas and California have long been regarded as the states with the best high school baseball talent with Georgia also showing its prowess during the recent Major League Baseball Draft. But with the completion of the College World Series it might be time to add South Carolina to the conversation.
The South Carolina Gamecocks disposed of the UCLA Bruins 2-1 in 11 innings Tuesday to capture the national title. The Gamecocks beat out two teams that recruit heavily in Florida (Florida, Florida State), two others that recruit heavily in Texas (Oklahoma, TCU) and the Bruins, whose roster consists of 33 players (out of 35) that hail from California.
Beau Maggi (23), Brophy College Prep
Photo by Jed Strahm
South Carolina, meanwhile, has a roster of 38 players, the bulk of which come from in-state. Twenty of the Gamecock team members played their high school baseball in South Carolina, including winning pitchers Blake Cooper, who won the first game against UCLA, and Matt Price, who pitched over five innings to gain the victory in the second game.
Cooper battled UCLA's Gerritt Cole in the first game on Monday. Cole, a first round draft pick of the New York Yankees two years ago, was one of the nation's top prospects coming out of
Orange Lutheran (Orange, Calif.) in California his senior year. Cooper, meanwhile, played at
Edisto (Cordova, S.C.), a AA school in South Carolina, and earned all-state honors as a senior but was not drafted until this year.
Price, meanwhile, played at
Sumter (Sumter, S.C.), a 4A school, and earned all-state honors his senior year. He is one of 16 South Carolina natives to earn all-state honors prior to landing a spot on the Gamecock roster.
Clemson, which also participated in the College World Series, had six South Carolina high school players, bringing the total number of players from the Palmetto State to 26.
Florida had the highest number of alumni participating in the College World Series due in large part to the presence of the University of Florida and Florida State in the final group of eight teams. A total of 64 players hailed from Florida and only nine of those players were members of a roster other than the two Florida colleges.
Port St. Lucie (Port St. Lucie, Fla.) and
Alonso (Tampa, Fla.) each had three representatives in the World Series while
Boone (Orlando, Fla.),
Eagle's View (Jacksonville, Fla.),
Lake Brantley (Altamonte Springs, Fla.),
Lincoln (Tallahassee, Fla.),
Park Vista (Lake Worth, Fla.),
Seabreeze (Daytona Beach, Fla.),
St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.),
Tate (Cantonment, Fla.) and
Westminster Academy (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) each had two players involved.
Among the 48 former high school players representing Texas, only Fort Bend Kempner (Sugar Land, Texas) had as many as three alumni participating in the World Series. Calallen (Corpus Christi, Texas), Flower Mound (Flower Mound, Texas), Klein (Klein, Texas), Lamar (Houston, Texas), Lamar Consolidated (Rosenberg, Texas) and McKinney North (McKinney, Texas) each had two apiece.
From California, 46 alumni dotted the rosters of five of the eight teams involved in the World Series. No high school had three representatives, although Esperanza (Anaheim, Calif.), Glendora (Glendora, Calif.), Hart (Newhall, Calif.), Laguna Hills (Laguna Hills, Calif.), Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.), Santa Margarita (Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.) and Wilson (Long Beach, Calif.) all had two apiece.
Arizona came in behind South Carolina with the fifth highest number of alumni at 20, however five of those players came from one high school. Brophy College Prep (Phoenix, Ariz.) sent five former players to Arizona State, including a pair of brothers, Raoul and Riccio Torrez and Drew and Beau Maggi. Matt Newman is the fifth former Bronco at Arizona State.
The Torrez brothers and Newman all played on the 2006 Bronco team that won an Arizona state championship. Riccio Torrez, Newman and both Maggi brothers played on the 2007 team that reached the state finals and was one of the top-ranked teams in the country for most of the season. All five played for coach Tom Succow, who this year won his 600th career game at Brophy College Prep.
Georgia, which had five players selected in the first round of the 2010 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, had only 14 players in the World Series, which shouldn't be a surprise as no teams from the Peach State reached the final eight.
Of the 14, tiny Wesleyan (Norcross, Ga.), which won the Class A state championship this year, had two players, as did Dunwoody (Dunwoody, Ga.).
