Submitted Photo Pictured above is Peyton Ahlstrom pitching at the 2018 Perfect Game WWBA National Championship in Georgia versus the OTC Ballers on July 11.

Dunkirk resident and Dunkirk High School junior pitcher Peyton Ahlstrom recently returned from Lakepoint, Georgia where he competed in the 2018 Perfect Game 2020 WWBA National Baseball Championships for the Tri-State Arsenal 2020 national team out of Mt. Laurel, New Jersey. The week-long tournament featured 384 teams from across the country and was conducted at Perfect Game Park at Lakepoint and other top fields throughout the Atlanta Area. Hundreds of the top rated high school players in the 2020 class competed in this tournament.

The teams competing in the tournament were broken into eight team pools where they played each of the other seven teams with only the top team in each pool advancing to single elimination play. Tri-State Arsenal was grouped with Action Baseball (Cedar Park, TX), the San Diego Show (San Diego, CA), the Florida Scorpions (Orlando, FL), Five Star Baseball (Warner Robbins, GA), US Elite (Duncansville, PA), Morris Baseball (Schererville, IN) and OTC Ballers Baseball (McDonough, GA).

Over the course of the week Tri-State Arsenal went 4-3 defeating Five Star, US Elite, Morris Baseball and OTC Ballers. Ahlstrom hit .429 during the seven game tournament and pitched a complete game two-hit shutout versus the OTC Ballers to close the week for Arsenal. This pitching performance earned Peyton a spot on the All-Tournament team as a pitcher.

Asked about his summer season Peyton commented, “It was an eye opening experience, we were lucky enough to play at some incredible places — the University of Virginia and University North Carolina Complex’s were amazing — but my favorite might have been the brand new complex at Campbell University in North Carolina. The competition was pretty intense all summer, the team that won the WWBA in GA had 15 NCCA Division I commits on it. Teams like that to play against are hard to find up north.”

Following this tournament, Peyton completed his season by competing in the Dynamic World Championships conducted on the University of North Carolina Baseball complex and returned to Lakepoint for the Gatorade 17U Summer Showdown before closing out the season at the All-Star Baseball Academy Team Showcase at Drew University in NJ. When not competing for Tri-State Arsenal, Ahlstrom was a member of Coach Frank Jadoga’s Dunkirk High School Varsity Team this spring, the David Mckeever Post 64 American Legion 19U Baseball Team out of Buffalo, NY and the Titans Baseball 2019 Showcase team this summer.