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Ventura, Calif. - While the world of High School baseball in Southern California never really comes to a complete stop with the weather we afforded here to be able to get outside and play consistently, the MLK holiday weekend generally serves a launching pad for the rapidly approaching CIF High School baseball season. With multiple tournaments being hosted around SoCal and college team camps on the campuses of several prominent NCAA D1 programs there was plenty of baseball to be seen. My travels for 2026 MLK weekend took me to two different locations taking in five games of the Newbury Park High School MLK weekend event on Saturday/Monday. On Sunday I made the quick hop over to Ventura College to take in the tryouts for the Knights Knation/Dodgers summer scout team with around 60 2027/2028 players in attendance. For this week's version of Hardy's Hits we will be focusing the five games from Newbury Park and next week we will dive into some of the standouts at the Knights Knation Dodgers tryout.

The six team event at Newbury Park entered its fourth year in 2026 with teams from the Mission League, Marmonte League, Coastal Canyon League and the City section in attendance. I traveled out for three games on the opening day of the event with an early morning matchup between the Crespi Celts and Hart Hawks. After that I was treated to a quality game between the Birmingham Braves and Westlake Warriors before wrapping up the day with an outstanding look at the Royal Highlanders Dustin Dunwoody taking on the Newbury Park Panthers. With my travels to the tryout on Sunday I returned back on the Monday morning for a strong pitching matchup between Royal's Colten Rainer and Westlake's Caden Atkinson. The final game of my five game weekend at Newbury Park was highlighted by the opportunity to rising Soph. standout Carlos Acuna from the Birmingham matchup with Crespi.

The five game look allowed me the opportunity to see several standout arms from around my region while getting multiple at bat looks at some of the players of note for the upcoming spring on several of these rosters. I was able to collect video on several standouts and then a few who I didn't get video of still stood out and will be featured in this week's edition of Hardy's Hits.

+ '26 RHP Dustin Dunwoody - Royal High School - (Arizona Commit)

Dunwoody has long been a favorite of mine going back to my first look at him during his Soph. year coming out of the bullpen behind current Oklahoma State RHP Caden Sramek. The live armed RHP would join Team California at the 2024 Prep Baseball Future Games and then made an appearance at the 2025 Prep Baseball ProCase West. He has steadily seen his stuff tick up over the past two years from an already impressive upper 80's FB tickling 90 MPH with high level feel to spin his breaking ball in his Soph. year to the electric stuff he flashed for his first outing of 2026. Having added strength to an athletic frame that development helped Dunwoody showcase improved short burst velocity as he lived at 94-96 MPH in the first inning with easy life out of the hand as he still maintained his athletic, clean operation to reach those velocity levels including spin rates north of 2700 RPMs on his FB. He settled into the 91-94 MPH range for the next three innings, but the 95-96 top end velocity for Dunwoody was an intriguing development and as he continues to settle into his Sr. season I would not be surprised to see him pitch in that range more consistently as the spring goes on. The increase in his FB velocity brought increased life to his power SLD which worked in the 83-86 MPH range with spin rates approaching 3000 RPMs and collected whiff in the zone and chase out of the zone from RHH on the day. In addition, his CHG showed off improved velocity now at 84-87 MPH with heavy downhill vertical separation off his FB and he still spins a really good low 80's CB with sharp vertical break when thrown down in the zone. Across the board each of the offerings has seen an increase in life/power helping inch Dunwoody closer towards what is an intriguingly high power arm ceiling for his profile. But, battling the SoCal cold/flu season prior to the outing Dunwoody was not at full health so there was some of note inconsistency to his control on the day battling missing up with FB and down in the dirt on his offspeed. The outing included a battle with that control during the 3rd inning, but the 1st, 2nd and 4th innings were dominant for the Arizona commit who should see plenty of MLB scout attention in the coming months.

‘26 RHP Dustin Dunwoody@baseball_royal #ArizonaCommit#FG24 / #ProCaseWest25 alum

FB: 94-96 early settled 2-4 w/life
SLD: 83-85
CB: 81-83
CHG: 85-87

Strong 4 IP
4 Ks / 10+ whiffs
Easy velo w/filthy spin
📈 ‘26 draft name@ShooterHunt / @PrepBaseballCA @dustindunwoody pic.twitter.com/GEAcPKGhYj

— Steven Hardesty (@hardy03bsbl) January 17, 2026