A high school baseball phenom is emerging out of the Capitol Region, and may find his way to the Majors before long.

Gavin Van Kempen of Maple Hill High School in Castleton-On-Hudson, New York, continued his dominant season for the Wildcats, pitching a no-hitter against Watervliet on Tuesday afternoon. It was Van Kempen's third no-hitter in a row, which obviously has a lot of people talking. More and more MLB scouts have been in attendance to watch the flamethrower mow through opposing batters. In fact, scouts for more than half the teams in the MLB were there to watch Van Kempen's performance on Tuesday.

In his most recent no-no, all of Van Kempen's outs were recorded on strikeouts, 15 in five innings worth of work. In the second inning, he struck out the side on just 9 pitches, which is considered an "immaculate inning."

If that wasn't enough, Van Kempen - who stands 6-foot-6 - also helped himself at the plate, delivering a walk-off RBI single to push the Wildcats to a 10-0 run rule win.


Van Kempen is committed to pitch at West Virginia after graduating from Maple Hill. After that... who knows? If he remains healthy, we may have the next great pitching star for Major League Baseball coming from the Capitol Region of New York.

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