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Michael Chavis wins Rawlings Home Run Challenge

Less than 12 hours from departing Fowler Park/Cunningham Field on the University of San Diego's campus, the Perfect Game All-Americans found themselves back on the field for the second practice, which consisted of another round of BP, which was followed by the Rawlings Home Run Challenge. This year, the entire Challenge was conducted on Saturday.
A few notes on the batting practice session held prior to the Challenge:

• Jacob Gatewood was driving the ball much better on Saturday than what he did during BP on Friday night. With a tall, pro-style stature, Gatewood creates excellent leverage on his swing with immense power potential.

• Trenton Kemp, who has been dealing with a pulled hamstring and hasn't looked himself, got a hold of a ball in BP and drove it well over the wall in left field.

• Alex Jackson and Jon Littell continue to form an exiting 1-2 back-to-back punch in the West team's BP order. Both hit the ball consistently hard to all fields.

• Sweet swinging left-handed hitter Bryce Carter got into more of a power groove on Saturday, pulling the ball with loft to right field.

• Benito Santiago, like Gatewood, did a better job driving the ball today. His hardest hit balls were hit to straightaway centerfield, with intriguing power from gap-to-gap.

• Michael Chavis continued to show the ability to loft balls deep to all parts of the park.

• Justin Bellinger is a man among boys physically, much like Rowdy Tellez a year ago. And like Tellez, Bellinger enters Saturday as one of the favorites to win the Rawlings Home Run Challenge.

Thirty-eight players participated in the Challenge. Here are the totals from the first round in the order that they hit:

West

Jakson Reetz – 2
Monte' Harrison – 0
Michael Kopech – 1
Jacob Gatewood – 0
Marcus Wilson – 2
Bryce Carter – 1
Alex Jackson – 3
Keaton McKinney – 0
Sean Bouchard – 0
Jon Littell – 4
Brady Aiken – 1
Tyler Kolek – 1
Scott Hurst – 1
Brandon Murray – 0
David Peterson – 0
DJ Peters – 0
Stone Garrett – 0
Zack Shannon – 1

East

Justin Smith – 0
Carl Chester – 1
Michael Gettys – 3
Greg Deichmann – 1
Nick Gordon – 0
Braxton Davidson – 4
Justin Bellinger – 3
Ti'Quan Forbes – 0
Michael Chavis – 3
Grant Holmes – 1
Touki Toussaint – 0
Cobi Johnson – 0
Reese Cooley – 3
Sean Reid-Foley – 0
Chase Vallot – 1
Benito Santiago – 0
Kel Johnson – 3
Justus Sheffield – 0
Gareth Morgan – 2
Foster Griffin – 1

Jackson, Littell, Gettys, Davidson, Bellinger, Chavis, Cooley and Johnson (who hit two with nine outs) advanced to the second round of the Challenge and each batter was given 10 more outs. Here are the results:

Alex Jackson – 2
Jon Littell – 1
Michael Gettys – 0
Braxton Davidson – 2
Justin Bellinger – 3
Reese Cooley – 3
Kel Johnson – 1
Michael Chavis – 4

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