The sacrifice of many summer days to playing competitive baseball has paid off in an invitation to play in one of the state’s most prestigious summer ball games for two Bulldogg varsity baseball players.

Rising senior Dustin Dunagan and rising junior Max Pentecost of Winder-Barrow were both named to the Georgia Dugout Club’s Top 100 underclassmen rosters, and will match up with the best in their classes for two games at North Cobb High School next week.

Dunagan, a pitcher who was both an All-Region 8-AAAA and Athens Banner-Herald All-Northeast Georgia honoree, compiled a 9-4 record with a 2.03 earned run average and 121 strikeouts for the 2009 Diamond Doggs, helping the team reach the second round of the state playoffs. He was placed on the fifth of six underclassmen teams for the showcase event.

Pentecost, who started behind the plate for Winder-Barrow, was named to the fourth team (players were assigned to teams arbitrarily). In the 2009 varsity season, he hit .400 with seven home runs. He was on both the Athens Banner-Herald and All-Region second teams.

The showcase event will be played in front of a slew of college and professional scouts. Pentecost will be the first of the local players to play, at 1:30 p.m. Monday. Dunagan will play in the game immediately following at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dunagan will play in the early game at 9 a.m., with Pentecost playing at 1:30 p.m.

The game will continue a trend of Winder-Barrow players garnering postseason honors. Senior Jeremy Donaldson, who’s on his way to play collegiate baseball at South Georgia Community College, was named to a senior all-star team in May and played against the best seniors from the southern part of the state in a doubleheader at Kennesaw State University. He went 0-for-2 in the first game, although he lined out to the wall in left field, then was hit by a pitch to drive in the winning run in the second.

Donaldson was also a second-team All-Northeast Georgia – as a shortstop, which he played for half the season after teammate Dylan Ivey got injured – and first-team All-Region as a third baseman. He hit a school-record 13 doubles and added 12 homers as a senior, hitting at a .444 clip.

Other All-Region honorees from Barrow County were Winder-Barrow’s Taylor Hinshaw, the first-team pick at first base, and Apalachee’s Hunter Coleman and Justin Schultz. Coleman, a junior outfielder, made the first team while Schultz, the senior and lefthanded ace pitcher, made the second team.