By Allan Simpson
October 27, 2002

JUPITER, Fla.--Houston has become a hotbed for youth baseball in recent years, and the evidence is on display at the Perfect Game/Baseball America World Wood Bat championship that continued here Saturday.

Two Houston teams finished atop their pools with 3-0 records and advanced to the 36-team championship bracket, which begins Sunday. The Houston Heat earned the No. 2 seed overall, while Houston Kyle Chapman was seeded fifth.

All pool champions were seeded from 1-18 on the basis of overall record and fewest runs allowed, and the second-place teams in each pool were seeded from 19-36. Four play-in games are scheduled to reduce the bracket to 32 teams. The final eight is set for Monday.

The No. 1 seed overall is the Gold Coast (Fla.) Yellow Jackets, who went 3-0 and allowed only one run. The Heat also allowed just one run in pool play but the Yellow Jackets won the third tie-breaker by scoring 20 runs to the Heat's 10. Kyle Chapman allowed three runs overall.

Obviously, outstanding pitching has been the order of the tournament, which has attracted 72 of the top high school-aged teams from throughout the country, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Texas is well represented with 10 teams--none as hot as the Heat and Kyle Chapman.

In its three wins, the Heat allowed only five hits and got a combined no-hitter in its final pool-play game Saturday, a 2-0 win over the California Blaze. Senior righthander Matt Leva (Ball High, Galveston), who has verbally committed to Stanford, worked the first five innings, and senior righthander Brad Depoy (The Woodlands High) and junior righthander Tyler Kersten (Brazosport High, Jones Creek) worked an inning apiece. Deva was clocked at 90 mph, while both Depoy and Kersten topped out at 94.

On Friday, junior righthander Michael Adams (Cypress Creek High), senior righthander Justin O'Bannon (Kingwood High) and Heath Koneshek (Sealy High) combined on a one-hitter in a 2-0 win over the East Florida Scout Team. Earlier Saturday, senior righthander Dustin Walls (Kingwood High) and 6-foot-9 junior righthander Kenn Kasparek (Weimar High)combined on a four-hitter in a 6-1 Heat win over the Rijo (Wash.) Athletics. The Heat feature seven pitchers who have been clocked at 90 or better.

"Our pitching has been superb," said Heat coach Phil Cross, a part-time scout. "I always like to have a lot of pitching. You live and die with your pitching in a tournament like this."

Cross plans to pitch junior lefthander Doug Frame (Tomball High) in the Heat's opener Sunday at 10:30 a.m. against the winner of the Pinellas (Fla.) Scout Team and Team Puerto Rico. He'll have a rested staff and still hasn't used senior righthander Austin Creps (Klein High, Spring)--a member of the 2002 U.S. junior national team.

Kyle Chapman's pitching hasn't been quite as spectacular, allowing one run in each of the team's three wins. But its staff is just as deep as its Houston rival.

Junior righthander Brad Lincoln (Brazoswood HS, Clute) went all seven innings in the opener, a 6-1 win over the North Carolina Diamond Dawgs on Friday. Graham Godfrey, another junior righthander, worked the first six innings of a 4-1 win over the Pinellas (Fla.) Phillies Saturday. Later that day, three pitchers combined on a two-hitter in a 4-1 win over Team Puerto Rico.

"We still have plenty of pitching left," said Kyle Chapman coach Mike Rutledge, who indicated he would start junior lefthander Cory Van Allen (Clements High, Sugar Land) against the defending champion Miami Sluggers in an 8 a.m. game Sunday. "We've got Cory and we've also got two other guys who haven't pitched yet."

Kyle Chapman, however, is missing its best pitcher, senior righthander Mark Krampitz (Sealy High), who has a tender arm and didn't make the trip. The team is also without some other key players, including leadoff hitter Jake Stewart (Santa Fe High), a University of Houston recruit who was injured playing football. Outfielder Adam Hale, normally the team's No. 3 hitter, also is missing as he's playing with his normal high school team, the Bellaire Cardinals, which entered the tournament with its regular roster.

"Actually, I'm surprised we've done as well as we have," Rutledge said," because we're missing five key players."

An all-star squad assembled from the 20-team Kyle Chapman Fall League in Houston, the Kyle Chapman team has a rich history of success--both locally and nationally. The program won PONY Baseball's Palomino League World Series in 1993 and 2001, and sent two teams to the Palomino World Series this summer.

For the last 14 years, Kyle Chapman has been under the care of Rutledge, a mergers and acquisitions law attorney for the firm of Locke, Liddell and Sapp, one of the nation's 50 largest.

"This is my community service, overseeing this program and coaching these kids," Rutledge said. "I want them to get the best exposure they can and go to the best schools possible. I'd gladly sacrifice $100,000 a year in fees if I can make a contribution to these kids and their future."

To date, 92 players from the Kyle Chapman program have played Division I baseball, including future big leaguers like Jose Cruz Jr. and Ryan Rupe.

With about 500 scouts and college recruiters in attendance this weekend, Rutledge makes it a point that all players on his roster get an opportunity to be showcased.

"That's why I used three pitchers in our last game," Rutledge said. "I'm not here to win; I want our kids to be seen. My concern is that we could lose our first game tomorrow and some of my guys don't get to pitch. I want to make sure everyone gets a chance to play."

That philosophy may have cost his team last year, when Rutledge pulled Krampitz with a 5-3 lead in the first round of bracket play to give two other pitchers who had not worked in the tournament a shot. Kyle Chapman quickly surrendered the lead and lost to the Miami Sluggers, who went on to win the tournament. That Kyle Chapman team incidentally, included Dodgers' first-round draft pick James Loney and righthander Mark McCormick, one of the draft's most highly-sought prep pitchers.

Rutledge's attention to detail, and his ability to identify and develop top Division I prospects for Texas colleges, hasn't been lost on area recruiters.

"Mike does an outstanding job with his program," said Texas A&M recruiting coordinator and assistant coach Jim Lawlor, whose son Brad, a first baseman and the team's cleanup hitter, has played in the Kyle Chapman program for three years. The younger Lawler has verbally committed to Arkansas.

Both Kyle Chapman, named after a former Harris County parks commissioner who was responsible for the organization's playing facilities, and the Heat pool most of their talent from the rich high school ranks of suburban Houston, and have occasionally gone after the same player.

"There's a little competition between our programs," said Cross, "but we've got a lot of mutual respect for each other, too. As big a hotbed as Houston is, there's room for all the talent to be on more than one team. It's really an unbelievable area for talent."

Despite their close proximity, the two teams have not played each other in an official game this year. They were rained out of two games during the summer and met in a showcase game a week ago, when 10 pitchers worked an inning apiece for each team.

For the two teams to meet in this tournament, they would have to reach Monday's final as they are on opposite sides of the 36-team bracket.

• Other teams besides the No. 1-seeded Gold Coast Yellow Jackets, No. 2 Heat and No. 5 Kyle Chapman to finish pool play at 3-0 were the No. 3 Team Florida USA, No. 4 South Florida Bandits, No. 6 Perfect Game Royal, No. 7 Illinois Sports Academy, No. 8 Charlotte (N.C.) On-Deck O's and No. 9 Riverside (Calif.) ABD Bulldogs.

• Team Florida, a collection of top prospects from throughout the country, was the most impressive team in pool play. It outscored its three opponents 27-2, but was seeded third on the basis of runs allowed.

• The projected top four teams at the outset of the tournament--No. 1 Baseball America, No. 2 Team Florida, No. 3 Ohio Warhawks and No. 4 All-Star Academy of Pennsylvania--all ended up in the same bracket, meaning only one can advance to the semi-finals.

• The Baseball America team, which has several top draft picks in 2003 and 2004, beat the Southwest (Texas) Stars Xpress 6-1, to qualify as the No. 2 team in Pool A with a 2-1 record. Righthander Jason Corder (Capistrano Valley High, Mission Viejo, Calif.), the No. 1-ranked player in the Draft Class of 2004, worked the first five innings for BA, allowing four hits. His fastball never topped 90, but he helped his cause with a two-run double that highlighted a four-run second inning. Corder later scored on a double by outfielder Lastings Milledge (Lakewood Ranch High, Sarasota, Fla.), the No. 1 player in this year's draft class. Milledge continued to struggle with the bat Sunday as he went 1-for-4 to improve to 1-for-9 on the tournament.

• The defending champion Miami Sluggers needed a win in the final group of pool play games to advance to the championship bracket, where it drew Houston Kyle Chapman in the first round. The two teams also met in the first round a year ago.

• Apopka (Fla.) High and Houston's Bellaire High, two of the nation's top high school programs, entered their own high school teams in the tournament--though, for techical purposes, the teams were known as the Apopka Baseball Club and the Bellaire Cardinals. Apopka beefed up its roster with three outside players, while Bellaire went entirely with home-grown players. Apopka (2-1) advanced to bracket play, Bellaire (0-2-1) did not. Apopka eliminated the highly-acclaimed East Cobb (Ga.) Astros, the nation's top 16-year-old team, with a 5-0 win Saturday. The Astros won the AAU and Continental Amateur Baseball Association (CABA) national titles this summer and earlier this month won the PG/BA World Wood Bat Underclassmen championship in Fort Myers, Fla. Lefthander Jordan Schafer, 16, a sophomore at Winter Haven High, stopped the Astros on a route-going five hitter. Schafer, who didn't top 85 mph in setting down East Cobb, was selected by Baseball America as the nation's top 13-year-old three years ago.

• Both East Cobb entries failed to advance to bracket play. In fact, both finished last in their respective pools, winning one game between them.

• Every major league team has been well represented at the tournament, with numerous scouting directors in attendance. The White Sox have 14 scouts here--11 full-timers and three-part timers. "With games going on at 13 fields at one time, there's no way that you can adequately cover an event like this unless you've got a lot of people here," White Sox scouting director Doug Laumann said.

• All-Star (Pa.) Baseball Academy senior righthander Jay Sborz (Langley High, Great Falls, Va.) was clocked at 95 mph Saturday, but he lost 2-1 when runs scored on a wild pitch and passed ball.