Post 193/24 aims for perfection

Daniel Gregory knew he had a good team when he took over the Chapin-Newberry American Legion baseball program this summer.

Post 193/24 has been more than just good. They have been perfect.

Chapin-Newberry is 28-0 after winning the state championship and Southeast Regional crown. Post 193/24 hopes to complete the perfect season when it makes its first appearance in the American Legion World Series. C-N faces Michigan on Friday in its first game at Keeter Stadium in Shelby, N.C.

“Baseball is a fickle game. This just doesn’t happen. You aren’t supposed to go undefeated,” said Gregory, who is the baseball coach at Mid-Carolina High. “But things have gone our way and we are very fortunate to be in the position where we are.”

Gregory said the team didn’t talk much about the unbeaten record but sensed it might be feeling the pressure and might be a little over confidence after winning the first three games at the SE Regional all by one run.

So, Gregory held a meeting at the team hotel to get the team back on the same page.

“I told them the competition we are playing is pretty good and told them they are getting caught up in the next step already. They were thinking about getting to Shelby,” Gregory said. “They needed to just go out and be worried about one game each day and they did that.”

C-N’s roster features players from Newberry, Mid-Carolina, Dutch Fork and Clinton. The team has several players who are college freshman or committed to play in college, including pitchers Ryne Huggins and Ryan Stoudemire. Huggins is a Clemson commit while Stoudemire committed to play at Charleston Southern.

Infielder Justin Hawkins had a strong freshman season at USC Sumter. The former Mid-Carolina standout hit .322 and was tied for second among with NJCAA Division I players with seven homers and is fourth with 32 RBIs.

This summer, Hawkins is hitting .410 with nine homers, including two at the SE Regional and has 45 RBIs.

Dutch Fork’s Blake Smith leads the team with a .419 average and had 25 RBIs.

Other key contributors include Southeast Regional MVP Danton Hyman, Landon Allison and Peyton Spangler. Allison had the game-winning RBI in the SE Regional championship game against Asheboro.

As a team, C-N is hitting .353 and averaging almost 10 runs a game. On the mound, Chapin-Newberry had five pitchers win games at the Southeast Regional.

Post 193/24 will play three games in pool play with the top two teams in each division advancing to the semifinals. All the games in the American Legion World Series will be broadcast online on ESPN3 with Monday’s semifinals and Tuesday’s championship game carried on ESPNU.

Last year, the American Legion World Series set a record for attendance with 110,036 fans for the six-day event.

This story was originally published August 13, 2015 at 9:12 PM with the headline "Post 193/24 aims for perfection."