MARION, Iowa – On a rainy and relatively cool late June morning at the Prospect Meadows Sports Complex Saturday, the infusion of massive amounts of energy, emotion, enthusiasm and excitement brought to the park by a team that calls the Arizona desert its home was an entirely welcome diversion.
Make no mistake, the atmosphere inside both quads at The Meadows was outstanding, as dozens of teams competed at both the Perfect Game WWBA 16u North Championship and the PG WWBA 15u Midwest Elite championship.
It’s just that there was something special about the obvious joy the Gilbert-based AZWE Rawlings 2023 displayed both on the field and in the dugout during a pair of games Saturday at the WWBA 16u North. There was plenty of banter, chatter, words of encouragement and just that general sense of joy they brought to the fore.
It all started with head coach Ryan Lewis, who offered his words from the third-base coaches’ box when his boys were hitting, shouting out proclamations like, “Fire up the engines! Let’s go!” After one play, he turned to an interested observer whom he had just met, smiled ear-to-ear and yelled, “Old school, baby, old school!” To call it refreshing simply doesn’t provide enough oomph! Uplifting or even satisfying might be better adjectives to use.
“We stay loud the whole time; we’re a fired-up baseball team and we know we play dirty,” Lewis told PG on Saturday before offering clarification on that last comment. “At home we play on dirt fields and we wear white jerseys; we have stains all over our white jerseys. You’ll know when you see us at 3 o’clock and we’re three games deep that we’re never going to quit, we’re never going to stop; we’re going to fight you until the … daylight goes out.”
AZWE Rawlings 2023 kept the fight up for as long as was necessary in its two victories Saturday on its way towards a pool championship and a potentially high playoff seed on Sunday. It’s interesting that neither game resembled the other with the exception of the outcome and the guys who were swinging the hot bats.
The Rawlings 2023s needed a five-run fourth to erase a three-run deficit on their way to a 6-4 win over USA Prime Colorado Quarton 2023 out of Centennial – another team that did some traveling to get here.
They scored their six runs on six hits, with Cole Reece stroking a double and driving in three runs. Jacob Gonzalez; Eathen Rush and Bryce Fleming all singled and drove in a run. Four pitchers combined on a six-inning, eight-strikeout five-hitter with righty Austin Graffius striking out three and walking two in a scoreless, albeit tense, sixth inning.
“The win was very good for us; it’s what we came all the way up here for,” Reece told PG before commenting on the team’s change of scenery and the rain that fell most of the morning. “For me it comes pretty easy (to adjust) because I like playing in colder weather as opposed to the heat. But the heat is always good, too.”
The desert dogs didn’t fool around in the second game of the day Saturday afternoon, racing to an 11-0, five-inning win over the Pirates 16u out of Fenton, Mo.
AZWE totaled nine hits in that win with Rush contributing a triple, single, three RBI and two runs scored and Fleming adding a double, single, two RBI and two runs. Reece also singled and doubled, scoring a run, and Buddy King had a single and an RBI.
Brody Klenner, a 2023 right-hander, was very good on the windy afternoon, throwing a five-inning two-hitter while letting his defense do its job behind him – he recorded just one punch-out.
So what was it that brought this team all the way to a PG event in Eastern Iowa in the first place? Perhaps the simplest explanation is that the AZWE Rawlings 2023s just like to hit the road, especially now that travel has opened back up across the country.
They started the 2021 PG season with a mid-January trip to Tomball, Texas, where they competed at the PG Sophomore South MLK Championship. Following that excursion, the Rawlings 2023s then headed even farther east to Palmyra, Pa., to take part in the PG Super25 Central PA Super Qualifier June 4-6.
AZWE’s next trip was here for the WWBA 16u North Championship. From here they’ll eventually make their way to Marietta, Ga., where they’ll perform at the blockbuster WWBA 16u National Championship from July 15-22.
“Weeks before we leave, we’re all excited to come out and play,” top-500 2023 left-hander/first baseman Bradyn Barnes said Saturday. “Even in Georgia, I can’t even wait to go there and hang out with everybody – it’s so fun. You’re with your friends, so what’s not fun about that? You’re visiting someplace new and getting to play some baseball and even check out some (colleges) while you’re at it.”
Coach Lewis acknowledged that the West Coast is filled with more talented teams and top competition than can almost be unimaginable but he wants his players to get the full baseball experience by visiting other regions of country.
Iowa just seemed like a perfect destination in that regard. AZWE Rawlings was originally scheduled to open play here late Friday night but that game was pushed back to Saturday morning. Had they played Friday, they would have been treated to high heat and humidity with intermittent rain showers.
Saturday morning arrived with fairly steady rain showers, some wind and much cooler temperatures, providing the players with a nice little microcosm of typical June weather here amongst the farm fields. You know, sunshine and high humidity levels combined with a wet playing surface where the infields are turf and outfields are natural grass.
“It gives them an opportunity to be looked at by colleges and get evaluated in other parts of the country other than just the West Coast,” Lewis said. “From a West Coast standpoint, it’s a highly competitive environment. So a lot of these guys are going to have a chance at playing at a great school in the Midwest or the East Coast because the West Coast-style of play is well-received in other parts of the country.”
The players, almost exclusively from the class of 2023, come from the southeast corner of the Phoenix’s Valley of the Sun, with the hometowns of Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa and San Tan Valley the most prevalent on the roster.
By Lewis’ account, the core of this group has been playing together since they were 9 years old, saying that unless a player does something particularly egregious, he’ll never be cut. A casual observer might look at the team name and just see the four letters A-Z-W-E and correctly assume that the AZ stands for Arizona. The W-E? Well, that’s just what it is: “We” as in us. So the name is pronounced “AZ-WE”.
There’s a little more to the name, though. The program started as a sports foundation called AZ Winning Edge with four men, including Lewis, donating money in an effort to help kids who couldn’t afford to play competitive sports. From there, and with children of their own, they got into coaching.
With the program starting with a group of boys and their families who demonstrated tremendous compatibility, the coaches got busy teaching the game at the highest level possible.
“We spend a lot of time on small-ball,” Lewis said. “Every guy on our team pitches so every guy will get on the mound and give you 80 pitches and seven pitches if you need it. And every guy learns how to play infield and outfield, every guy knows how to bunt and we’ve got four or five guys that can switch-hit.”
There are stipulations that come with membership to this group. The young players are required to do 40 hours of community service every year and to maintain a 3.3 GPA or they’ll be sitting.
They are also asked to take on the obligation known as “giving back” The teenagers help with teams for handicap kids and people with disabilities that comes through camps sponsored by the AZWE program (there is no cost; everything is funded through donations, including the program itself).
“We’re all as close as brothers can be,” Reece said. “We’re way comfortable with each other and we’re able to trust each other on and off the field. We don’t always expect a win but we always expect to do our best and we never give up. … It’s been a great experience (with AZWE); it’s the best team I’ve ever been on.”
This is a squad not lacking for a certain level of star-power, with several of its top guys already being recognized in PG’s class of 2023 prospect rankings.
The most high-profile is the aforementioned Bradyn Barnes, a top-500 left-hander/first baseman who has committed to Arizona State, making him the only rostered prospect with a commitment to date; the outfielder/middle-infielder Eathen Rush is also ranked as a top-500. Ten other players are listed as “High Follow” or “Follow” meaning they’re definitely on the rise in the collective eye of the PG scouting department.
With this group having been together for six or seven years now – and with 13 of the 20 players on the official roster classmates and teammates at Highland High School in Gilbert – the coaches really don’t have to say a whole lot to promote that feeling of brotherhood. The only conversations center on getting after it out on the field.
“We talk about competing; we talk about fighting for each other and playing for each other,” Lewis said. “If you go out on the field and give 110 percent of everything you have and respect the game, things will work out; that’s what we focus on. … It’s the game of baseball and you’ve got to take what it gives you.”
Added Reece: “In the dugout, we’re always being talked to by Coach about the things that we should do. If we make an error on the field we always get talked to, just so we can learn what we can do better.”
Getting back to the travel aspect of this ongoing adventure, Lewis said they never enter the airways without some sort of pre-trip planning. As an example, they start preparing about three days in advance of a trip for the inevitable time zone changes. The players and coaches will start going to bed at night and waking up in the morning much earlier than usual to acclimate their body clocks to what lies ahead.
Lewis also doesn’t worry about these guys being physically taxed by having to adjust to different weather scenarios because they do a lot of conditioning, a lot of running and, in Lewis’ words, a lot of “pushing the envelope” so when they do get in tough spots they won’t miss a beat.
It boils down to a one simple determining factor: These guys want to play ballgames, and if they have to be on a field at 6 a.m. or 10 p.m. or whenever, it just doesn’t matter. Wet ball or dry ball? It just doesn’t matter.
“For us, we’re all about teaching these guys how to make memories,” Lewis said. “So being on the airplane together, being in the hotel together spending time around each other – it’s important to develop that camaraderie, that brotherhood. If you go play college baseball or professional baseball, you know what that looks like versus a disjointed team.”
At the same time, adjustments will need to be made based on circumstances, like those that arose this weekend. These are kids who live in a desert climate and while they may experience a two-to-three week monsoon season in late July/early August, they’re not used to having raindrops falling on their heads.
“I’d would say you definitely have to change for these rainy days,” Barnes said. “Being down there in desert it’s never really rainy and you’re not used to the wet turf and sliding around, and it’s super sweaty. If your hand is damp the ball is harder to grip, especially when you’re pitching, so it’s way different and something you have to get used to.”
The guys with AZWE Rawlings 2023 have adapted well to the Midwest weather conditions, with the hope they won’t have to learn about tornadoes anytime soon. But mostly they’ve brought an extra dose of emotion, energy and excitement to an event that wouldn’t have been lacking in that regard to begin with but certainly welcomed the boost.
As a proud, unapologetic believer in old-school baseball who respects the history of the game perhaps more than anything else, Lewis didn’t hesitate when asked what he hopes his players take away from these experiences. And not only here in Iowa but in all the other spots they put their boots on the ground.
“That baseball is America’s pastime. It doesn’t matter what state you live in; it doesn’t matter where you were born, it’s a birth-rite,” he said. “Every one of these guys are out here playing the game that they love and you need to play the child’s game as long as you can. Don’t take for granted every second that you get to have cleats strapped to your feet. Don’t take it for granted; enjoy every second of it.”