No. 5 Coppell stands Texas tall

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THIS WILL BE A VERY DEEP AND TALENTED TEAM that Coppell High School head coach Kendall Clark will trot out onto the field for the 2016 season-opener Feb. 8 at Prosper High School. The only drawback is that in the rugged Dallas Metroplex neighborhood and the world that is Texas Class 6A Region I, the “deep and talented” distinction really doesn’t set the Cowboys apart from the rest of the crowd.

Pick up a baseball somewhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and give it a heave, and it will likely land on a beautifully prepared playing field that is the home to a nationally prominent high school program. That will be the case, anyway, if that baseball lands in the communities of Flower Mound, Southlake or Arlington, among others.

“Here in the Dallas Metroplex it’s tough right from the get-go; there’s always a nationally ranked team right around the corner,” Clark told PG during a recent telephone conversation.

His words ring true, of course, but this year it looks like the Cowboys are the kings of this neighborhood. Lifted by the return of 13 of its top 14 position players and seven of its top eight pitchers from a 2015 team that finished 25-6 after a loss in the Class 6A regional quarterfinals, Coppell starts the season in the No. 5 position in the 2016 Perfect Game High School Preseason National Top 50 Rankings.

It’s not a stretch to imply that this collection of Cowboys is a group that Clark, assistant head coach Clint Rushing and the rest of the staff has had an eye on for several years. There are 11 experienced seniors on the roster, including four that have signed with premier NCAA Division I schools; four others have signed with Abilene Christian University, which is in the process of transitioning to D-I.

The core of this senior group have been full or part-time starters since their sophomore seasons. Clark kept the seniors together on their own team as freshmen but then started moving them up to the varsity as sophomores; success jumped into their equipment bags and rode right along.

“When they’re sophomores and juniors and they do get into the playoffs and make a little bit of a run, they can kind of see how that all works,” Clark said. “It’s really the same game but they got accustomed to being in a big and loud environment, and these guys have been in three (playoff) elimination games – game 3’s in which they’ve won some and they’ve lost some – so they’ve dealt with that situation where if you lose, you’re done.

“All that just adds up to us being really, really hard to beat every time we lineup,” he continued. “We have so much pitching depth that we can go to a six-game tournament and we can pitch all six of them.”

A quartet of senior right-handers headline the pitching staff, led by 2015 Perfect Game All-American Charles King, a Texas Christian University signee ranked the No. 23 national prospect in the 2016 class.

A 6-foot-5, 205-pound fire-baller – he delivered a 95 mph fastball at the PG WWBA World Championship in October while pitching for the Dallas Tigers – King was 7-0 with a 1.46 ERA and 48 strikeouts and 14 walks in 38 1/3 innings for the Cowboys in 2015.

“He’s a hard-worker and he’s a lot stronger than he looks,” Clark said of his ace right-hander. “He’s a good athlete and he’s very, very confident in what he can do … and he’s not scared of the weight room and he’s not scared of working. You add that with a lot of talent and if I’m a hitter it’s not going to be fun at all. … A lot of kids I’ve seen have a lot of talent but they don’t work to develop it or get better.”

When King was in attendance at the 2015 PG National Showcase in Fort Myers, Fla., in mid-June, he spoke about his experiences with the Cowboys during his junior year when senior Jensen Elliott was the staff ace.

“We really fell short of our goal but I feel like we really came together (in 2015); it was a lot better than our last season (in 2014),” he told PG at the time. “There is definitely a lot of good talent in our region and it’s tough to play in the area, but that’s the type of competition that helps you get better.

“There are a lot of good kids out there and you have to work to get better, and it helps you to grow and become a better baseball player.”

Baylor signee Hayden Kettler (3-1, 1.40 ERA, 23 Ks, 3 BBs, 20 IP), Oklahoma State recruit Chris Burdine (1-1, 3 SVs, 1.98 ERA, 22 Ks, 5 BBs, 17 2/3 IP) and Dallas Baptist signee and closer Ray Gaither (1-1, 7 SVs, 0.41 ERA, 21 Ks, 6 BBs, 17 IP) are the other top senior pitchers back. Kettler (.281, 8 2Bs, 3 3Bs, 3 HRs, 20 RBI) is also among the top hitters returning for the Cowboys.

“They have three years of experience, they’ve been in a lot of playoff games, they’ve been in elimination games, they know the atmosphere, they know the work-week that leads up to a playoff series, they know everything,” Clark said of his top returning seniors. “They’re just experienced, and they’re confident and they’re zeroed-in on their goal. They just want to come to the ballpark and work hard and have fun and go home.

“We want to come in and have a good day of work and laugh and have a little bit of fun and enjoy ourselves, and enjoy the journey to the end of the season.”

A strong junior class is led by 6-foot-5 left-hander and Louisiana State commit John Kodros (1-0, 1.47 ERA, 24 Ks, 6 BBs, 14 1/3 IP), shortstop and Arkansas commit Jacob Nesbit (.354, 7 2Bs, 4 3Bs, 14 RBI, 26 SBs) and left-hander/outfielder Cody Masters, a newcomer who has committed to Texas Teach and who, according to Clark, can “run like a deer.”

This is Clark’s fifth season as head coach at Coppell. He previously coached at Plano West High School, where he won a Texas Class 6A state championship in 2008. When he looks at this team as a whole, he sees a group with single-minded focus in terms of what they hope to achieve at the end of the year.

Simply put, the Cowboys want to win the Texas Class 6A state championship, which requires being the best among the state’s largest enrollment schools. Coppell won its only state championship in 1995 when it was a Class 4A school.

“(The players) haven’t got the big head or gotten side-tracked on what they want to achieve,” Clark said. “They’ve got tunnel vision toward June 10th and 11th (the state tournament dates). They’ve got one goal and they know what it is and they haven’t lost sight of that.”

There are a lot of teams in Texas Class 6A Region I alone that would love to block that tunnel, and appear to have the talent to do so. The website txhighschoolbaseball.com published its Class 6A Preseason Top 20 on Jan. 16 and had Coppell ranked No. 1 with Region I foes Arlington Martin (No. 4), Southlake Carroll (No. 5), Flower Mound (No. 9) and Hebron (No. 10) also featured prominently; surprisingly, Flower Mound Marcus is not ranked. Anyway it’s sliced, it will take a Herculean effort for the Cowboys to win a regional championship, let alone a state title.

“It makes you really coach hard in practice to prepare your kids the best you can because they have to get off that bus and they have to bring their ‘A’ game or they’re going to get beat,” Clark said of the competition. “That makes everybody better … because we want to beat them.

“The Metroplex is very, very competitive but in the long run it makes the players better and I think it makes the coaches better, too, because you have to really be on the top of your game.”