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Tournaments | Story | 5/28/2021

Trosky National '25 all-in at 14u WMD

Jeff Dahn

Photo: Xavier Neyens (Perfect Game)

SURPRISE, Ariz. – About an hour before the Trosky National 2025 squad was to begin play at this holiday weekend’s Perfect Game WWBA 14u West Memorial Day Classic on the Royals’ side of the Surprise Spring Training Complex, a couple of the team’s top prospects talked about what it meant to be there.

To begin with, it needs to be noted that Xavier Neyens and Joshua Campbell do not call the Desert Southwest home, although as a couple of talented 14½-year-olds, they’ve already spent a fair amount of time here. But there was no mistaking the joy they were feeling just being in this spot at this time alongside a collection of other talented prospects from the class of 2025 they call teammates.

“I love it,” said Neyens, a catcher/third baseman from Mount Vernon, Wash., up in the Great Northwest. “This is a great group of guys so I’m excited to get after it; it should be a fun weekend.”

Not long after Neyens spoke with PG, Campbell, an outfielder/middle infielder out of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., in the Upper Midwest, said pretty much the same thing: “I enjoy this team a lot,” he told PG. “[My teammates] brighten up the dugout and it’s a good team; good competitors...And I like the warm weather and getting away from the Michigan weather. There’s no rain or anything, so it’s nice.”

Nice indeed, even with Friday’s mid-day temperature reaching triple digits and the sun blazing down relentlessly out of a cloudless desert sky. Nice indeed, especially after the San Jose, Calif.-based Trosky National 2025s opened play at the four-day WWBA 14u WMDC with an emphatic victory that left little doubt they just might be considered an early favorite to claim the crown at the 36-team event.

Not particularly deep with an official 13-man roster on opening day of the tournament, it is nonetheless a team with firepower to spare. That was evident in a 13-1, four-inning romp past ATB 14u out of nearby Glendale early Friday afternoon, a game in which the Nationals 2025 used seven hits and eight walks to score those 13 runs.

Take a look at how the first inning of that game set the tone: Trosky starter Calvin Gregory, an unranked lefty out of Lake Oswego, Ore., struck-out two of the three batters he faced in the top half. Hunter Kenji Fujimoto lined a triple into right-center to lead off the bottom half and came in to score when Campbell hit a hard grounder to short for an RBI fielders’ choice. It was the first of four runs the National 2025s scored in the frame and it all seemed to happen in short order.

Gregory pitched two hitless, scoreless innings, striking out three; Neyens doubled, singled, drove in a pair of runs and scored three; Bruin Agbayani singled, had two RBI and scored three times; Quinten Marsh hit an inside-the-park home run in the third and finished with two RBI.

The Trosky National 2025 roster features class of ’25 prospects from seven states – Arizona, California, Hawaii, Michigan, Oregon, Utah and Washington – and they were brought together with a definite purpose in mind.

It’s a team led by Neyens, a 6-foot, 175-pound athlete who has committed to Oregon State and who PG ranks as the No. 10 overall (No. 1 catcher) national prospect in the 2025 class. The uncommitted 5-foot-10, 165-pound Campbell is ranked No. 71 overall (No. 17 OF) and the uncommitted Marsh from San Jose is ranked No. 110 (No. 26 OF). Mason Pike, another highly-regarded prospect (No. 30-ranked) and Oregon State commit is also rostered but is playing in the 15u WMDC with Next Level Xtreme; he could be available to Trosky in the playoffs if needed.

“We have a lot of good pitching...and our lineup is also pretty stacked,” Neyens said. “So we can swing it good, pitch it good and play good defense – our outfielders are elite. We’re just pretty stacked overall.”

Or, as head coach Abe Ruiz put it: “This 2025 National group has got a chance to be real special.”

So how was this roster constructed? Ruiz, who is ably assisted by Tommy Cardiel, took the time late Friday morning to explain the formula to PG.

Nate Trosky is the founder and owner of Trosky Baseball and is best known as one of the most highly-respected infield instructors in the game, traveling worldwide. He makes a lot of connections and develops a lot of valuable relationships through his camps and other interactions with young players.

“That’s how we’re able to meet some of our Hawaiian players, some of our Midwestern players that come into the program; they’re originally from our Coach Nate camps,” Ruiz said. “The other guys locally, it’s kind of word-of-mouth...They’ll reach out to us and we’ll reach out some of them, as well.”

The coaches at Trosky are working to put these youngsters in a unique situation by bringing in kids from all across the country. They then help them become comfortable with one another while trying to replicate what Ruiz called “that college locker room experience” at one of the earliest levels of their development.

“You go to college and everybody there is going to be the best player from where they’re from,” Ruiz said. “So they get into that environment now and they learn how to become a team and create a culture of competitiveness on a day-in day-out basis with each other. That ultimately will help them prepare for that next level.”

A guy like Neyens is a good case in point. He actually made his PG debut at the PG Freshman MLK Championship in January 2020 before all baseball activity was shut down by the pandemic two months later. That experience was brief, but it put in motion a 16-event career to date and a resume that includes five all-tournament team selections and three PG Baseball Association (PGBA) team championships.

“That’s when I kind of realized that this is where everything is at; this is where the best tournaments are at,” Neyens said of that early taste in 2020. “Then I got in with Trosky...and they always go to the Perfect Game tournaments so it’s just worked out great.”

Neyens first started playing with Trosky Baseball in September 2020 when he earned all-tournament recognition playing up with the National 2024 at the PG Freshman Fall National Championship Protected by G-Form right here in the West Valley.

He joined this National 2025 team early this year in time for the PG Freshman South MLK Championship in Tomball, Texas, where he again earned all-tournament honors.

Campbell’s association with Trosky Baseball came to be through another route. His older brothers, Jon Campbell Jr from the class of 2019 and Saborn Campbell from the class of ’21 are also elite outfielders who spent time with the Trosky program; Jon is currently at Boston College and Saborn is a Stanford signee.

“They train with me all the time and they make me better in school and on the field,” Campbell said of his brothers.

Now already a veteran with 20 PG events under his belt, the kid with 11 all-tournament team selections to his credit has gone above and beyond what his older siblings had accomplished at his age. Again, it’s all part of the plan.

“How this program is run is our job is to prepare them for the next level,” Ruiz said. “We’re not concerned with trophies, with rankings – that comes with being a talented baseball player. If you go out there and perform that’s going to take care of itself...

“I love getting guys at the younger age because that gives us four or five years to work with guys, but whenever we get them that’s our goal is just to make sure they’re ready to compete that first year at whatever college they’re going to.”

A casual observer might think that the program leaders at Trosky Baseball demand an awful lot from their young charges. But there is nothing here over-the-top or really out of the ordinary when it comes to teaching the intricate ins-and-outs of a simple yet complex game.

Ruiz asks only that these recent eighth-grade graduates show up on time and that they have their jerseys tucked neatly into their pants when they arrive at the field. They’re reminded that they’re not just representing the Trosky Baseball family but their own family as well, and it’s important that they understand it’s all intertwined.

“Our biggest expectation is that you play hard, you treat the game with respect, you treat your opponents with respect and then you get after it,” Ruiz said. “Winning is a byproduct of that – you’ve got a talented group; winning is going to take care of itself. The most important thing to me is that these guys learn how to play winning baseball.”

The Memorial Day Classic has long been Trosky’s summer kickoff event and this year it will launch the Trosky National 2025 into a summer that promises to be even more demanding than those of past seasons.

This group has been invited to the prestigious PG 14u World Series to be held in Sanford, Fla., July 22-26 and also has an invitation to the 20-team 14u Ultimate Baseball Challenge-West Powered by Perfect Game and Baseball America in San Diego Aug. 5-8.

But first things first. There’s this little affair taking place right here in the west Phoenix suburbs that the Trosky National 2025s would like to sign-off on before the heat of the summer – and the heat of elite national competition – bears down on them.

“We’re just going to go out here and play our hardest and get the ‘dub’; we’re just going to work hard,” Campbell said, adding that the positive chemistry these players share is through the roof. “I’m really looking forward to it a lot and I’m probably going to really enjoy it a lot.”

The recipe for ultimate enjoyment seems to be in place: “We’ve known each other for probably seven or eight months now so we’ve kind of bonded together; we're ready to get some ‘dubs’,” Neyens said. “I love this team.”

Or, as head coach Abe Ruiz put it: “This 2025 National group has got a chance to be real special.”

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