On Sunday night, 84 of the best high school baseball players in the nation filed into a meeting room at the U.S. National Team Training Complex in Cary, N.C. They had just completed four days of games, athletic testing, practices and seminars with former players and coaches with decades of experience in the majors. They were waiting to hear if their names would be called to represent the U.S. at the U-18 Baseball World Cup Americas Qualifier in Panama City in early August.

It is not an easy team to make. The coaches reiterated that Mike Trout, perhaps the best player of his generation and a three-time MVP, did not make the roster as a teenager.

Of the 84 was Slater de Brun, a senior-to-be at Bend’s Summit High School. He sat there waiting to hear his name called after an admittedly tough week in the batter’s box.

Perhaps it was to be expected. After all, high schoolers do not tend to face many (if any) pitchers throwing fastballs in the mid-90 mph range with nasty breaking balls in their arsenal.

But de Brun “controlled the controllables” while in North Carolina, showing he was up to the task on the base paths and in the field. He did the little things that coaches love — laying down bunts, sprinting out ground balls and hustling on and off the field between innings. He believed he at least had a chance to make the squad. But de Brun was not going to get his hopes up.

Five names were called, including that of de Brun, who still gets chills thinking about the moment.

“I walked out of the room and immediately started crying,” de Brun said. “I called my dad and thanked him for everything. This is the greatest honor of my life so far and it probably will be for a long time.”

He is the only high school player from Oregon, and the entire Pacific Northwest, to land on the squad.

“There was a very fast and rapid transition to elation and surprise for my kid, to understanding the responsibility of this choice and being in service of this country,” said Steve de Brun, Slater’s father. “We don’t have as many opportunities in baseball to represent the country.”

Making the roster puts de Brun in rarified air. Previous 18U U.S. rosters are not just littered with future major leaguers, but MVPs and Cy Young winners. Former MVPs Bryce Harper, Freddie Freeman, Buster Posey, Andrew McCutchen and Clayton Kershaw represented Team USA while still in high school in recent years.

In this year’s MLB draft, 17 USA Baseball alumni were selected in the first round.

Slater de Brun is committed to playing collegiately at Vanderbilt — one of the top baseball schools in the country — and is a first-round pick in Perfect Game’s “Way Too Early” 2025 mock draft. But he knows that even though he has hit some really impressive checkpoints in his young career, nothing in baseball is guaranteed.

“Being on this team doesn’t mean stuff in the future is going to happen,” de Brun said. “I have to stay on the path and that path requires a lot of hard work.”

The rise that began on the Little League fields in Bend came as a bit of a shock to the de Brun family. Neither his mother nor father were really into baseball, but his uncle Todd Zwillich, an avid Washington Nationals fan, helped spark Slater’s enthusiasm for the sport.

“He started watching baseball games, just studying baseball games at a young age,” Steve de Brun said. “I didn’t know what he was watching or observing. For myself and my wife, if you want to do something we will support it.”

He got involved with Central Oregon Crush, a local club baseball team, and frequented the batting cages at Vince Genna Stadium during the summer. He started working with former major leaguers — Richie Sexson and Jerry Owens — who have settled in Central Oregon after their playing careers.

“All those kinds of things really add up,” Steve de Brun said. “When you know someone who did it, it definitely changes your perspective. It makes it a lot more real.”

But de Brun believed these goals could be reached even before he made the Storm’s varsity squad as a sophomore. And in the span of a few short years, college coaches began seeing and believing in the vision he had for himself.

“I was still thinking I could play at whatever school I wanted and that I could make the big leagues one day,” de Brun said. “Obviously I’m not there yet, but that ignorance helped me. I always thought I could do it.”

He added: “Nobody is going to work harder than me, that’s one of those controllables, it has nothing to do with talent. That is what helped me get this far.”