2015 Perfect Game High School Baseball Preview Index
No. 1 Lambert Longhorns (Suwanee, Ga.)
State Association/League: Georgia High School Association (GHSA) Class AAAAAA/GHSA 6A-AAAAAA Region 8
Head Coach: Drew Ferrer (1st season as interim head coach)
2014 Results: 32-2 overall record; 14-0 6A Region 8 Champions; GHSA Class AAAAAA State Champions; Perfect Game National High School Final Top-50 National Runner-Up; USA Today National Champions; Collegiate Baseball National Champions
Key Losses: RHP Dylan Biumi (Western Carolina); MIF Trey Logan (Georgia); OF/RHP Harrison Lee (University of the South); 1B Jake Chickowski
Top Returning Players: Sr. OF Jeremy Johnson (Auburn); Sr. RHP/3B Justin “JD” Dutka (Fla. Southwestern SC); Sr. SS Eric Furphy (Georgia Southern); Sr. C/OF Will Dunavant (Wofford) Jr. OF/RHP Seth Beer (Clemson); Jr. OF/LHP Tucker Maxwell (Georgia); Jr. C Kyle McCann (Georgia Tech); Jr. 1B Ian Kimbrell (Fla. Southwestern SC); So. OF Darius Foster
Notable Matchups: March 9 vs. Johns Creek; March-25-28 National High School Invitational, Cary, N.C.; March 30 vs. Johns Creek; March 31 vs. Chattahoochee; April 22 at Chattahoochee
THIS WOULD BE CALLED A SEASON OF TRANSFORMATION FOR MOST HIGH SCHOOL baseball programs across the country. At Lambert High School in Suwanee, Ga., it’s not as much of a transformation as it is a slight transition.
A couple of months after the Longhorns won the GHSA Class AAAAAA state championship – and were named national runners-up by Perfect Game and national champions by USA Today and Collegiate Baseball – school officials and team members learned they were losing the services of popular head coach Jamie Corr, the only head baseball coach in the school’s five-year history.
Corr had decided to accept the challenge of resurrecting the baseball program at Florida Southwestern State College (formerly Edison State College) in Fort Myers, Fla., his alma mater. Edison State College had been without a baseball program for 17 years.
The resignation wasn’t tendered until July 1 and rather than rush into a long-term hire, Lambert athletics director Drew Ferrer decided to take over for one year on an interim basis. Programs of lesser stature would have been rattled if not totally rocked.
But the Longhorns – with six of their seven top hitters and two of their three winningest pitchers back from last year’s 36-2 squad – don’t expect to miss a beat once they begin the defense of their GHSA state title on Feb. 23.
In recognition of the talent that will be back in the Longhorns’ dugout this spring, today Lambert enters the 2015 season as the No. 1 team in the Perfect Game Preseason National High School Top-50 Rankings.
“This (team) has got a very good group of veteran players that have been in the program for a little bit and are still very hungry,” Ferrer told PG during a recent telephone conversation. “They’re humble and they work hard, and I think they want to play for each other again and try to repeat and do this again.
“Their goals are still very much in mind … and this group of seniors is a good group of leaders; they’re going to go out there and work.”
No fewer than 13 players on this Longhorns’ roster are already committed to continue their baseball careers in college, including four that will join Corr at Florida Southwestern SC, a member of the National Junior College Athletic Association. Three others are heading to Piedmont College, an NCAA D-III school in Athens, Ga.
A sound argument could be made that the Longhorns’ starting outfield is the best in the country, with a senior and two juniors that are all heading to NCAA Division I campuses in the falls of 2015 or 2016 if, of course, professional baseball doesn’t intervene.
Junior outfielder/right-handed pitcher Seth Beer returns as the Longhorns’ top hitter and one of their more effective pitchers. Beer, who swings from the left side, hit a team-high .589 (63-for-107) as a sophomore, with team-highs in home runs (10), doubles (21), RBI (56), total bases (114), slugging percentage (1.065) and on-base percentage (.674).
With a fastball that reaches the low 90s (mph), Beer was 6-0 with a 0.69 ERA and 43 strikeouts in 39 1/3 innings; he was named the Georgia Region 6A/AAAAAA Player of the Year.
Beer is a veteran of 21 Perfect Game events, playing in 2014 PG WWBA and PG BCS tournaments in 2014 with the Georgia Roadrunners. A Clemson recruit ranked No. 12 in the class of 2016, he was at the 2013 and 2014 PG Junior National Showcase and the 2014 PG National Showcase.
Junior outfielder Tucker Maxwell is ranked 104th nationally in the 2016 class (Lambert High School).
As a young teenager, Beer was recognized as an Olympic-level competitive swimmer, holding national age-group records in a couple of backstroke events. He no longer swims the year-around, although he continued to swim for the Lambert high school team as a way to stay in top condition for baseball.
“Seth Beer is one of the nicest, most respectful, hard-working kids I’ve been around,” Ferrer said. “He’s a yes-sir, no-sir kid, just very respectful and very well-grounded; his parents have done an outstanding job of keeping him humble and doing the things he needs to do be a complete kid. Seth is very much a team-guy first … and that’s something that’s great to have around the locker room.”
Lambert’s other two starting outfielders know how to play, as well. Junior Tucker Maxwell is a Georgia commit ranked No. 104 nationally who hit .404 (40-for-99) with six home runs, seven doubles, 27 RBI and 36 runs scored as a sophomore.
Senior Jeremy Johnson, a top-500 prospect who has signed with Auburn, hit .360 (36-for-100) with seven doubles and team-highs of 56 runs scored and eight stolen bases as a junior. Uncommitted sophomore outfielder Darius Foster, ranked No. 48 nationally in the class of 2017, is ready to jump in when needed.
“You’ve got that kind of talent out there in the outfield and to be around them, they’re just great kids,” Ferrer said. “They’re not kids that are just going to show up and go through the motions; they’re kids that work.”
Other top hitters returning include junior Ian Kimbrell (.435, 8 EBH, 29 RBI, 23 R), junior Kyle McCann (.404, 3 HRs, 7 2Bs, 31 RBI, 22 R) and senior Justin “JD” Dutka (.361, 5 HRs, 2 3Bs, 11 2Bs, 34 RBI, 46 R). Dutka, a right-hander, was 11-1 with a 2.50 ERA in 2014, allowing 62 hits and striking out 47 in a team-high 72 innings. McCann recently committed to Georgia Tech; Kimbrell and Dutka are among the Florida Southwestern recruits.
“Having all those guys back, it just gives you a very veteran team that’s been there and seen some things and done some things that can help when you get into certain situations,” Ferrer said. “They’ve been there a little bit and I think that helps a lot.”
Lambert High School – one of five high schools in Forsyth County northeast of downtown Atlanta – didn’t open its doors until the fall of 2009, when Ferrer became the school’s first athletics director. He had previously spent time as an assistant coach to Corr at South Forsyth HS and one of his first moves at Lambert was to hire Corr as the school’s first baseball coach in the spring of 2010.
Ferrer has been out of coaching since he became the Lambert AD but when Corr announced he would be leaving, there wasn’t enough time to conduct a thorough search for a qualified, full-time replacement. Ferrer agreed to take the job on an interim basis for one year while the search for Corr’s replacement moved forward.
By early December, the search had ended. As it turned out, Ferrer didn’t need to look any further than Brookwood High School in Gwinnett County, which abuts Forsyth County to the southeast. On Dec. 9, Ferrer announced he had hired Brookwood head coach Rick Howard to take over the Longhorns’ program in the fall of 2015.
Howard is a proven winner. He led Brookwood to the GHSA Class AAAAA playoffs in each of his first nine seasons at the school and to the Class AAAAA state championship in 2008. He also coached the Broncos to a pair of state runner-up finishes while compiling a 210-111 overall record in 10 seasons.
“This is just kind of a fill-in role for me, and I don’t say that in any sense that I don’t care about it or I’m not going to take it seriously,” Ferrer said. “It’s a firm commitment this year and I’m excited about it, but there is an end in mind. We wanted to make sure we could get the right person long-term and then I could go back and work at my day job.”
Ferrer said he will try not to deviate from the things Corr did over the previous five seasons while leading the Longhorns to their national championship contender status. Simply put, he doesn’t expect this season to be much of a transition at all for the players, especially considering their experience level.
There is a realization among everyone inside the program that a lot of things have to go right for a team to win a high school national championship. Injuries have to be avoided; lady luck needs to take up residence inside the players’ equipment bags.
And because there are limited opportunities for head-to-head competition against other highly ranked and regarded teams from states on the other side of the country, a team must win consistently to build it resume and its reputation to create a perception of greatness. Goals have to be first set, and then met.
“I think we have to stay humble,” Ferrer said, echoing a refrain common among coaches and athletes that have reached high levels of success in the recent past. “I think we have to stick with what’s worked, which is keeping your nose down and working hard and trying to outwork other people. It’s serve-and-leadership … because if you truly want to lead you have to be able to serve.
“Last year was last year and it starts over now,” he concluded. “Everyone we play is going to want to knock us off and we’ve got to come to work every day and get better to keep this success up; these kids are hungry for it and they want to do it again.”