2015 Perfect Game High School Preview Index | Mid-Atlantic Region Preview
The 12 seniors that will be slipping on Wando High School baseball uniforms and fanning out across Warrior Field on the school’s 110-acre campus in Mount Pleasant, S.C., this spring don’t have an official nickname and, quite honestly, have gotten along just fine without one.
The group has done a lot of winning at Wando High during the four or five years they’ve been part of the program, capturing regional titles and making nice runs into the South Carolina High School League (SCHSL) Class AAAA Lower State Tournament.
But an SCHSL overall state championship has eluded the Warriors. And that’s why going into the 2015 spring season this group of seniors just may have shown enough moxie to earn the nickname of “The Determined Dozen.”
“It’s been a journey, for sure, and it’s been a really fun ride,” standout senior outfielder Kep Brown told Perfect Game over the telephone this week. “There have been a lot of really good players that have come through here … and it’s been awesome to see all of those guys go through. Now it’s our turn – it’s our season to make a mark – and we’re ready for it; we’re definitely excited.”
The Warriors advanced to the second round of the SCHSL Class AAAA Lower State Tournament last spring – South Carolina holds Upper State and Lower State tournaments with the two winners meeting to determine an overall state champion – where they lost a 2-1 decision Sumter. They were then beaten by Region VII rival West Ashley, 4-2, in a second-round consolation game to finish the season 19-11.
Despite that late stumble, enough talent returns for fifth-year head coach Dirk Thomas to allow the Warriors to debut at No. 31 in the Perfect Game National High School Preseason Top-50 rankings. It is the highest ranking for any school from the PG High School Mid-Atlantic Region (Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia).
“I’ve liked this group since they were eighth-graders and freshmen coming through the program,” Thomas told PG this week. “There’s a lot to be said for 12 kids to stick together throughout four years and then continue to get better … and that just says a lot about their work ethic.”
Seven members of “The Determined Dozen” have signed letters-of-intent to continue their baseball careers in college. Brown, a 2014 Perfect Game All-American, is the most high-profile prospect in the group and has signed with the University of Miami, but he is far from alone.
Senior right-handers Harrison Smith (PG top-1,000 national prospect, South Carolina signee), Jeff Gottesman (high-follow, Bucknell) and Owen Ravenel (high-follow, uncommitted) lead a pitching staff that might be unrivaled at the high school level in South Carolina this spring.
“All three of them are ridiculous athletes – I mean they’re just studs – and we’re really comfortable with where we are knowing that they’re our three guys,” Brown said.
Other top seniors back this spring include catcher Noah LoCascio (t-500, William & Mary), corner-infielder Tyler Ackard (t-1,000, Limestone) and shortstop Oliver Hill (high-follow, uncommitted). Outfielder/right-hander Peter Brown Jr. (t-1,000, uncommitted) is among the top juniors on board.
Most of the seniors in this group have been playing together since they were nine or 10 years old and have formed an air-tight bond. The relationships developed through their interactions in the classroom, on the baseball field, on other sports venues and just hanging out away from school will last a lifetime.
“It’s beyond tight-knit; we’re like a band of brothers,” Brown said. “The connection we have is unreal. We are best friends on and off the field and we do everything together. I think it’s definitely a rare situation, a rare occasion, where you come up with these guys and you see the older players come and go, and we’ve been through it all together.”
WITH MORE THAN 3,700 STUDENTS IN GRADES 9 THROUGH 12 walking its halls, Wando is the largest high school in the state of South Carolina, enrollment-wise. With such a large student population to draw from, Thomas can’t think of a single reason why he shouldn’t be able to put an ultra-competitive team out on the field year after year.
The program holds annual tryouts for the junior varsity team that welcomes eighth-, ninth- and 10th-graders, and it is not uncommon to have as many 65 kids show up. Since most of the young players are involved in summer travel baseball and already possess the basic skills needed to play at the high school level. The process of paring that gathering down to a 25-man JV roster is one of Thomas and his staff’s biggest challenges.
“There are just a lot of talented players,” Thomas said. “Those first 10 to a dozen kids are easy to pick but when you start picking that second half of the team, there is not a whole lot that separates the 20th guy from the 30th or 35th guy. That’s when it really, really gets challenging, with those middle-of-the-road guys.”
That situation is not unique to Wando, of course. There are four other Class AAAA (large-school) high schools in the immediate Charleston Metropolitan Area, including West Ashley in Charleston, Cane Bay in Summerville and Goose Creek and Stratford, both in Goose Creek in the Charlotte-North Charlotte Metropolitan area. All five schools compete in Class AAAA Region VII.
“Every one of the 4-A schools puts a good baseball program on the field; they’re competitive every year,” Thomas said. “The whole area, baseball-wise, is just really, really growing.”
Thomas moved to the Charleston area in 1988 and has noticed a remarkable jump in the level of play and the talent each year he’s been there. He attributes that to the summer programs that have sprung up – not just in the Charleston area but all across South Carolina and the PG Mid-Atlantic Region – and have aided the young players’ development.
The Diamond Devils, based right in Mount Pleasant, are among the most established and well-respected of those organizations. The Upstate Mavericks out of Lyman have also risen in prestige, as have other South Carolina-based groups like the Lexington Baseball Club, SC Shockwave and the Rawlings Stars Prospects SC.
“There is just so many different teams … that the guys are getting an opportunity to develop during the summer because they’re getting playing time,” Thomas said. “I think that’s that the biggest reason the talent is developing is because there’s just more opportunity for kids to play.”
Brown, Smith, LoCascio, Ackard, Gottesman and many of the others have been regulars with the Diamond Devils through the years. Brown also played with the Atlanta Blue Jays and Orlando Scorpions/Mets Scout Team; Ackard with the Upstate Mavericks. Many of these players have also attended Perfect Game showcase events.
It was Brown’s superb performance at the Perfect Game National Showcase last June that earned him an invitation to the Perfect Game All-American Classic in August, and helped put him on the national map; he soon rocketed to the No. 20 spot on PG’s class of 2015 national prospect rankings. PG ranks him the No. 39 overall (high school, junior college, college) prospect in June’s MLB First-Year Player Draft, a slot that if realized would make him a late first-round selection.
All that “showcase baseball” is good fun, of course, but given his druthers Brown would just as soon slip on his Wando Warriors’ uniform and play with his pals.
“When you come to your high school team, we’re all out there for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to win a state championship,” he said. “It’s a completely different feel. You feel a lot closer with the guys and there’s a lot more chemistry because you know nobody’s really going to be selfish about themselves. We just want to go out there and play and win, however we may do that.”
BEING AN ACTIVE MEMBER OF SUCH A HIGH-PROFILE HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM has its rewards as well as its challenges. It is not lost on the Wando players that the mere fact they attend the largest enrollment school in South Carolina leads to higher expectations both within the school and from the general public. Brown not only recognizes those high expectations, but embraces them.
“Nobody really talks about it, it’s kind of unspoken, but there’s just that sense of being a Wanda Warrior and walking like a Wanda Warrior that sets you apart from other schools and other teams that we take pride in,” he said. “We want to out-perform every other team we play no matter what the sport, no matter what the season, no matter what the circumstances; we just want to win.”
Thomas remembered that when Brown came into the program as an eighth-grader, many of his physical talents were already evident. What was lacking was maturity, a disorder that seems to run rampant among 14-, 15- and 16-year-old kids. But as one high school season led to another, Thomas began to see a marked change in the young man, reaching a pinnacle at the completion of his junior season.
“I saw (Brown) evolving into everything we talk about as a Wando baseball player,” he said. “I think what allowed his physical skills to really, really take off this past summer and do the things that he’s doing is was the mental stuff – his preparation, his attitude, his work ethic.”
Of course, the same could be said for every other senior on this squad: “All of us as a group have matured,” Brown said. “You do that; that’s just part of growing up and going from a 14-year-old to a 17-year-old. That’s why I think the summer and fall circuits really helped me understand what I want to do the rest of my life. … I have definitely matured on the field and off the field.”
Thomas especially appreciates Brown’s leadership skills and the things he does to motivate his teammates. It is clear the talented senior wants to cap his high school career with a South Carolina state championship, and he could not care less if he’s not the one in the spotlight.
“He deflects (the attention) more towards his teammates now,” Thomas said. “For things like that I couldn’t be any more proud of any one guy for the way he represents our program.”
Thomas played baseball at West Liberty University, an NAIA school in Wheeling, W.Va., moved to the Charleston area after graduating in 1988 and worked high school jobs and also coached at Charleston Southern University for six or seven years as a volunteer.
He considers the Wando position one of the top high school jobs in South Carolina, and it’s easy to understand why. He finds his players readily receptive to the basic directives they need to follow in order to remain a member of the team.
“It’s about being self-motivated, being accountable for your actions; teaching them that they need to do things on their own if they want to get to that next level,” Thomas said. “(The coaches) are limited by rules and things that we can with them, and they need to take it upon themselves to be self-motivated to get to that next level.
“… The program that we run here, we’re almost geared to a college mentality,” he continued. “It’s not a bunch of rah-rah stuff, it’s ‘Here’s your work; we need to get this, this and this done to accomplish this.’ It seems to be working so far.”
It’s a program governed by the acronym “A-R-C-H” which stands for “Accountability-Respect-Commitment-Honesty.” They are words “The Determined Dozen” have embraced since becoming part of the program when many of them were barely out of middle-school.
The weather in South Carolina in February – like so many other parts of the country – has been dreadful, but the Warriors are hoping to get into the full swing of things the first week of March. Their official season-opener is scheduled for March 5 against Rock Hill at the I.P. Classic in Georgetown.
Once the balls start flying around Warrior Field on the Wando campus, the Warriors’ seniors and assorted underclassmen will set sail on a two-and-a-half month adventure they hope will end with an SCHSL Class AAAA state championship. “The Determined Dozen” are more than up to the task.
“It’s almost a sense of arrival,” Brown concluded. “We’re seniors and it’s kind of bittersweet knowing it’s our last year in the program, but we also know it’s our last year to make an impact on the state – and even on the country – by winning a state championship.”