2015 Perfect Game High School Baseball Preview Index | Texahoma Region Preview
The folks just kept rolling into the high school field in McKinney, Texas, late last May, driving bumper-to-bumper for about 45 minutes northeast up the Sam Rayburn Tollway, having left their homes in the city of Flower Mound behind to enjoy two days of Texas high school playoff baseball.
They arrived in McKinney by the thousands on Friday and Saturday, May 30-31, 2014 to watch their beloved Flower Mound High School Jaguars or, just as likely, their beloved Flower Mound Marcus High School Marauders duke it out for the Texas University Interscholastic League (UIL) Class 5A Region 1 championship.
The winner of the best-of-3 intracity series would earn a berth in the semifinal round of the 5A state tournament the following weekend down in Round Rock.
The two schools from the Dallas suburb of Flower Mound had played three times during district (conference) play earlier in the season, with Marcus winning two of the three. But the favored Jaguars would leave nothing for chance over these two late spring days, beating the Marauders 11-0 in five innings in the series’ opener and then eliminating them with a 4-1 victory in game two.
“Those were probably the two most fun games I’ve ever played in,” Flower Mound HS senior right-handed pitcher and first baseman Sean Wymer told Perfect Game during a weekend telephone interview. “The stands were packed and there were lines of people going back forever into the parking lot to get into the game and there were no seats available. There were people lined down each foul line watching; it was a real good atmosphere.”
The memory was a little more bittersweet for Marcus senior infielder/outfielder Bryce Verplank, when he thought back the two games that ultimately defined his junior season.
“It’s crazy to have that many people come out to a high school baseball game,” Verplank told PG during a separate telephone interview. “It was pretty awesome to play in that atmosphere and I hope it happens again. It didn’t turn out how we wanted it to but it was still fun to play those games and be around there, and everybody was into it.”
The idea that Flower Mound and Marcus could meet one another in a regional tournament final again this spring – both schools have been reclassified to Class 6A – isn’t at all far-fetched.
The only two high schools in this Texas city of about 65,000 residents are ranked Nos. 11 (Flower Mound) and No. 28 (Marcus) in the PG 2015 National High School Preseason Top-50 Rankings, joining Miami, Fla., as the only city with two schools in the rankings. Only No. 6 College Station HS is ranked higher than the two Flower Mound schools among teams in the PG High School Texahoma Region (Oklahoma, Texas).
Flower Mound went on to win the Texas Class 5A state championship last season, the first in the program’s 15-year history. Third year head coach Danny Wallace returns a solid core of seniors from that championship team (it finished 36-12), including five that have signed with NCAA Division I schools. Wymer, a PG top-500 national prospect, has signed with Texas Christian University in nearby Fort Worth.
“The mood here will always be the same,” Wallace told PG when asked about his team’s mindset as it prepares to defend it state championship. “The expectation is to be ready to go when the playoffs start in May and the goal will always be to get to the state tournament.”
The attitude is very much the same across town at Marcus (32-10 in 2014), where third year head coach Jeff Sherman welcomes back seven seniors that have signed with D-I schools. Verplank, ranked No. 413 nationally, has signed with Oklahoma State where his uncle, PGA regular Scott Verplank, was an NCAA All-American golfer.
“As a culture, the things that we try to create is that the players be very knowledgeable of what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, and they play fast,” Sherman told PG. “We try to make every practice a game-like situation … and we don’t let off the gas pedal.
“I think our guys are very confident guys, as well, because they’ve been around the best and they play at that level and we try to expect that level.”
ONLY A LITTLE OVER THREE-AND-A-HALF MILES SEPARATE the two high schools, with most of that distance covered on the north-south running Morriss Road. The city is bordered to the northeast by Lewisville Lake and to the southwest by Grapevine Lake, with Marcus HS about four miles from Lewisville and Flower Mound HS about four miles from Grapevine.
Flower Mound’s Wallace grew up in the Dallas-Fort Worth (D-FW) Metroplex area and played baseball at the University of Texas. He coached for 10 years at Georgetown High School in east-central Texas near Austin. He had lived in the D-FW Metroplex but never coached there before taking the job at Flower Mound, which was established in 1999.
“It’s a baseball crazy environment here,” he said. “Not to take away from our other sports because our other sports do well here, too, but this is just a place where kids grow up dreaming of playing baseball. It’s just a big deal here.”
There are several factors at play. The American League’s Texas Rangers grow more popular every year and the Double-A Frisco RoughRiders have their home stadium 25 miles away in Frisco. The popularity and continued success of the collegiate programs at TCU and Dallas Baptist add to the appeal.
“I’m sure it all plays a part,” Wallace said of the influences of the college programs. “The University of Texas was in Omaha (at the College World Series) last year, Texas Tech was in Omaha last year; TCU was in Omaha last year. Kids grow up here seeing all that and I just think baseball is something that is a big part of the whole state, just as much as football is.”
Marcus’s Sherman can provide a unique perspective to the baseball-loving culture – he is a Flower Mound native and 1999 Marcus HS graduate. He coached at Centennial High School over in Frisco for five years before returning to his hometown to take over as head coach at his alma mater just ahead of the 2013 season. Edwin S. Marcus High School opened its doors in 1981.
“I already knew the reputation of what Marcus is all about and the (quality) of the baseball that is over here,” Sherman said. “There are three things that we wanted to instill here: one was with player development, the second was to bring a toughness to us and the third was team chemistry and loving each other.”
Both coaches agree that the kids’ passion for baseball begins at an early age with the city’s extensive youth program. The Flower Mound Youth Sports Association (FMYSA) uses fields at seven city parks to host thousands of players on hundreds of teams that play in classifications starting with 3u blastball and 4u T-ball and continuing with baseball leagues for 5u, 6u, 7u, 8u, 9u/10u, 11u/12u, 13u/14u and 15u/18u.
“Baseball is part of the culture here and it’s been like that for many years,” Sherman said, “and the expectations to win here is at a high, high level. We do have very, very talented guys and I think that’s because of the youth organizations in Flower Mound.”
Current University of West Virginia assistant coach Derek Matlock started the baseball program at Flower Mound in 1999 and, according Sherman, planted the seeds that led to the phenomenal growth of the programs at both schools. He led the Jaguars to three straight Texas Class 5A playoff appearances from 2002-04 and to the state championship game in 2004.
“He was the first baseball coach over there and he kind of cultivated this whole area,” Sherman said. “He was very much interested in – like Coach Wallace and I – in development from the youth all the way up.”
ALTHOUGH WALLACE IS RETURNING A LOT OF TALENT FROM last year’s state championship roster, he is still trying to get a handle on the team during the preseason as it tries to put its own identity in place. “Every year is a new year and you’ve got to mix the personalities of teenage boys, which is always interesting,” he said.
The solid list of returnees is led by Wymer, the TCU recruit, but his resume isn’t the only glossy one.
Flower Mound senior Sean Wymer, a Texas Christian signee, is among a core group of players back this spring as the Jaguars look to win a second straight Texas state championship (Photo: Flower Mound High School).
Catcher/second baseman Noah Hill and shortstop Casey Jacobsen, a couple of seniors, have both signed with Brigham Young University. Outfielders Deron Arnold and Jameson Hannah, both seniors, have signed with Stephen F. Austin and Dallas Baptist, respectively; senior left-hander Ethan Dailey has signed with D-II Southern Arkansas.
Hill, Jacobson and Wymer have been varsity starters since they were sophomores in the 2013 season. That Jaguars team finished 31-5 overall and were the 5A Region I District 5 champions with an unblemished 15-0 record. “They provide a great core for us,” Wallace said. “It’s going to be weird for me next year to not write their names down in the lineup.”
The goal of these seniors is to add another state championship trophy to the school’s already sizeable collection of hardware.
“The expectation is there and once, you might say, you achieve the ultimate that we were able to do last year, it only makes it something that everybody wants even more,” Wallace said. “We’ll definitely build on it and use it as something that we can fall back on.”
Just like Wallace over at Flower Mound, Sherman has three seniors who have been starters on the varsity since they were sophomores: infielder/right-hander Brendan Venter (top-500, S.F. Austin), catcher Matt Bernstein (top-1,000, Texas Tech) and right-hander Jack Cushing (t-1,000, Georgetown).
Sherman had a pretty good senior class in 2013 – current Baylor starter Nick Lewis was in that group – but these youngsters provided a nice base from which to build toward this year.
The other top seniors for the Marauders include Verplank; outfielder/right-hander Ashton Easley and left-hander Ethan Nichols – both top-1,000 prospects and Air Force Academy recruits – outfielder Nic Minor (Kansas State) and infielder Drew Jackson (high follow, Pensacola State).
“We just need to go out and play our game,” Verplank said when asked about his team’s mindset heading into the season. “We know we have the talent to win, and we just have to not make many errors and play within ourselves and trust our defense. We have to try to not overdo it and not listen to all the outside noise and just keep everything within our team.”
WHEN THE TWO TEAMS MEET ON THE FIELD DURING THE REGULAR SEASON, the event is called the “Mound Showdown.” The student bodies from both schools turn out in force, creating a scene a lot of people would equate to Texas high school football’s storied “Friday Night Lights” phenomenon.
“It is a bitter rivalry. There is respect between the two, but it is intense to say the least,” Flower Mound’s Wallace said.
“In one word, it would be ‘intense,’” Marcus’s Sherman echoed. “I can’t say there’s a hatred because these kids have been playing with each other all the time they were growing up, and I think we respect them and they respect us. There’s this mutual respect but at the same time, the town, it’s divided. … It has to be a top-five rivalry in the country, there’s no doubt in my mind.
“No one understands that until you go to a Marcus-Flower Mound game. It is the most intense game of the year.”
While the coaches and the parents might talk about the intensity of the rivalry, the players seem to talk more about just how much they enjoy every aspect of it.
“I think that’s really fun because a lot of us from both Marcus and Flower Mound have played together since we were young,” Flower Mound’s Wymer said. “So it’s like you’re playing against your friends and you know each one of their weaknesses and it just makes it all that more fun at a game – but can be very intense.”
Marcus’s Verplank seconded that thought: “We’ve played together for a while and we played with a lot of the Flower Mound kids for a while, too; we’re really all good friends. We’ve all known that we were pretty good and it was going to end up like with two good high school teams. … We respect each other very much.”
The two teams have been practicing and scrimmaging for a couple of weeks now and will open their seasons in the coming days. Wymer said the key for the Jaguars this spring will be to tuck the 2014 state championship safely in the backs of their minds and concentrate on the road ahead.
“Everyone looks forward to the baseball season coming up,” he said. “I feel like it’s probably the biggest sport at Flower Mound (high school), and when that season starts up everyone starts coming around and coming to the games; it’s just a real good environment.”
Verplank said it’s important that the Marauders use the experience they gained advancing to last year’s regional final and use it take the next step this season.
“It’s actually pretty crazy down here when it comes to baseball,” he said. “Whenever it’s game day and game time we’re pretty serious but other than that we’re pretty laid back and we’re really close as a team; we really enjoy each other. I think that really helps us.”
These two Texas high schools separated by just more than three miles of city streets in the Dallas suburbs are now home to two of the top prep programs in the country. One is the defending state champion and the other wants to turn the tables and walk away with a different outcome then what transpired late last May in McKinney.
The king will continue to occupy the throne for at least the next three months but he knows that is no shortage of gladiators looking to knock him from that perch – starting with his next door neighbor.
“This group is out to achieve another state championship,” Flower Mound’s Wallace said. “We’re aware of the competition just in our own town and right in the Metroplex here there are several really good teams in the Dallas area.
“It’ll take a great effort and we’ll have to improve every week – I know that’s all coach-speak – but our kids are very focused on the ultimate prize again. We have the talent to do it, so we’ll see how it all plays out.”