South Charlotte Panthers

The Panthers completed their 2007 season in Jupiter, Florida at the Perfect Game World Wood Bat World Championships. The Cats advanced to the championship round of 32 teams where they were put out of the tournament by eventual runner up the Orlando Scorpions and finished 19th based on runs given up.

In tournament pool play the Panthers completed play with a win and two ties to earn advancement to the championship round. In Game 1 the team battled to a 0-0 tie versus one of the tournament favorites the Puerto Rico Baseball Academy. Starting pitcher Alex Wood (6-1) pitched a complete game shut out and matched the highly touted Puerto Rican pitcher inning for inning in front of a large opening day crowd. Alex gave up 4 hits while striking out 6 in the game. He also controlled the speedy Puerto Rican running game by picking off two base runners. The Cats missed out on a couple of scoring opportunities, leaving runners in scoring position 3 innings. Collecting hits for the Cats were LF Shane Basen; 2B Richie Shaffer and 1B Chris Fogleman.  

In Game 2 the Panthers beat the PG-Miami Blue 4-0. Starting pitcher Ryan Arrowood (4-1) pitched a complete game shutout taking the Panthers pitcher's shutout innings streak to 20. Ryan struck out 10 while giving up only 2 hits in the victory. RF Tyler Miller 3-4 with a triple; Richie Shaffer 2-4 with a double and C Ben Redmond 1-2 with the game winning RBI led the offense.

 The Panthers gave up a 3 run lead in the final game of pool play and hung on for a 5-5 tie against the talented All Star Baseball Academy. Starting pitcher Corey Roberts (10-3) struggled early and was relieved by Clay Watson. Clay shut down the ASBA bats for 4 innings while striking out 2, but gave way late following a couple of scratch hits. Richie Shaffer in relief got the bases loaded final out on a double play from SS Garrett Koster and 2B C.A. Clayton to preserve the tie. RF Tyler Miller led the offense going 2-3 with a 2 RBI double and 3B Ryan Arrowood was 1-3 with an RBI double.

The Panthers advanced to the championship round of 32 teams in the 80 team field and took on the undefeated Orlando Scorpions. The game went to the fourth inning tied 0-0 when the Scorpions put together a couple of hits off of starting pitcher Mat Batts (7-3) and took a 2-0. The Cat bats were silenced by the Scorpion lefty pitcher with the exception of scattered hits by 3B Ryan Arrowood; 1B Chris Fogleman and C Tyler Tewell.  The loss knocked the Panthers out of the tournament. The Cats gave up 7 runs in 4 games placing them 19th place for the event. Eighteen Panther players are looking forward to returning to Jupiter in the fall of 2008 to improve on this years results.

The 2009 Cats finished the season 48-17-4 and the fall season 18-4-2.