​For the second consecutive year, a South Jersey product from Coastal Carolina has earned a first-round selection in the Major League Baseball draft. Right-hander Cameron Flukey, who graduated from Egg Harbor Township in 2023, was picked by the Detroit Tigers with the 22nd overall choice in the first round on Saturday, during the opening day of the draft as teams gathered in Philadelphia. Last year, former Haddon Heights and Coastal Carolina catcher Caden Bodine went 30th overall to the Baltimore Orioles. Bodine has since been traded to Tampa Bay, where he is currently competing in Double-A for the Montgomery Biscuits.
The first four rounds of this year’s draft were scheduled for Saturday, with rounds 5 through 20 wrapping up the event on Sunday. Flukey’s junior campaign was marred by injuries, limiting him to seven starts in 2026. The 6-foot-6, 210-pound right-hander missed approximately two and a half months with a rib injury but returned late in April. Across the season, he posted an 0-2 record with a 4.13 ERA and 31 strikeouts over 24 innings, while opponents batted .247 against him.
Flukey, an Egg Harbor Township High School graduate, had been anticipated as a first-round pick in the 2026 MLB Draft. His breakout year came in 2025 as a sophomore, when Coastal Carolina reached the NCAA World Series championship series before falling to LSU. That season he went 7-2 with a 3.19 ERA. In 101.1 innings, he struck out 118 and walked 24. One of his standout performances in 2025 came in the College World Series, even though it ended in a loss. In six innings of Game 2 against LSU, Flukey held the Tigers to four hits and one run, striking out nine and issuing two walks.
As a senior at Egg Harbor Township in 2023, Flukey posted a 6-2 record with a sparkling 0.45 ERA, earning Courier-Post first-team all-South Jersey honors. He fanned 83 batters in 45.2 innings. The last South Jersey pitcher to be drafted in the first round was Mainland’s Chase Petty, who, like Flukey, played in the Cape Atlantic League. Petty went 26th overall to the Minnesota Twins in 2021.
Marc Narducci is a freelance reporter for the Courier-Post and can be reached at cpvarsity@gmail.com. This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post and has been organized here to support better search visibility for readers seeking South Jersey’s Flukey in the first round of the MLB Draft.