Prep Baseball Report

High School Crosscheck: Week 7


Nathan Rode and PBR Staff

The National High School Invitational is always a must on scouts’ calendars in the spring and the 2018 field had some of the best talent in the event’s history. Going into the event, there were 15 High School Top 100 prospects in the event, including 12 of the top 50, on top of several others that could find their way into the rankings before June. A couple prospects were out with injuries and didn’t perform to expectations, but a very large crowd of scouts was shuffling between fields for a few days.

The biggest standouts were LHP Matthew Liberatore (Mountain Ridge HS, AZ), RHP Cole Winn (Orange Lutheran HS, CA) and OF Jordyn Adams (Green Hope HS, NC). Liberatore didn’t have his best stuff or command, but found a groove and gutted out seven innings to help his team advance. Winn did what he’s done all spring—dominate with his low-90s fastball, pitchability and above-average curveball. Adams was easily the biggest winner of the entire event.

Adams is a star wide receiver and the son of the defensive line coach at North Carolina. He is committed to the Tar Heels for both sports and has long been expected to be unsignable and ticketed because of his two-sport status and relative rawness. That may still be the case, but his performance over four games have teams thinking a little harder about him.

In the first round, facing LHP Luke Bartnicki (Walton HS, GA), Adams opened the game with a hard groundball to shortstop. He got down the line in four seconds and looked safe, but was called out. He later smacked a slider from Bartnicki through the left side for an RBI double on what should have been a routine single. He didn’t break stride and took second despite the throw from the outfield being cut off.

Adams wasn’t cheated out of any hits Thursday, scorching three balls, one of which was a triple down the left-field line. He also stole four bases. After one of his singles, he scored without a ball being put in play. He stole second, took off for third on the next pitch, which got by the catcher and allowed Adams to easily round the bag and score. He didn’t record a hit in the semifinals, but all of his outs were loud.

Adams is extremely athletic and does everything on the field with ease. He uses a big leg kick to load and drives the ball with a smooth, quick swing. He takes long, easy strides to chew up ground on the bases and in center field.

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