2015 Perfect Game High School Baseball Preview Index | Great Plains Region Preview
The winter-weary people who live, work and play in the Denver Metropolitan Area are ready for a break. A warm, thawing “Spring Break” would be just the ticket for these folks as they continue to dig out from a February that left behind more than 23 inches of snow, a record for Colorado’s heavily populated Urban Front Range.
That total is small change for the ski resorts that lie many miles to the west and about another mile higher up into the Rocky Mountains, of course, but for the people in the city and the suburbs to the east, enough is enough.
It’s darn near baseball season, after all, and with many of the top baseball programs from the eight-state (including Colorado) Perfect Game High School Great Plains Region calling the southeast Denver suburbs home, people are getting antsy.
In an effort, perhaps, to further whet some whistles, a Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA) website called CHSAANow.com released its preseason polls for all five classes (5A, 4A, 3A, 2A, 1A) this week and the 5A and 4A rankings were dominated by schools from the Continental League.
In Class 5A, Regis Jesuit High School (in Aurora) is ranked No. 1; Legend High School (Parker) is No. 4; ThunderRidge High School (Highlands Ranch) is No. 6 and Mountain Vista High School (Highlands Ranch) is No. 10; in Class 4A, Ponderosa High School (Parker) came in at No. 7.
“When I look at those rankings, we’re at the top and these guys should be proud of that,” Regis Jesuit second-year head coach Matt Darr told Perfect Game, “but if you look one column over, right now that record says zero-and-zero. … But (the ranking) should be a sense of pride and satisfaction that we’re part of something that is recognized as far as doing it the right way; they should feel good about that.”
Some of the top high school prospects in the country and many of the top prospects from the state of Colorado will be wearing those schools’ uniforms this spring, primarily at Regis Jesuit and Legend. The state’s top-ranked class of 2015 prospect, shortstop Nick Shumpert (a PG All-American ranked No. 5 nationally) attends Highlands Ranch High School, which is also a member of the 12-team 5A/4A Continental League.
Four of the eight teams that played in the quarterfinal round of the 2014 CHSAA Class 5A state tournament – Regis Jesuit, Chaparral, Mountain Vista and ThunderRidge – arrived there from the Continental League.
“There’s not an easy game in our league,” seventh-year Legend head coach Scott Fellers said, sounding resigned to that sobering fact. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve graduated seniors and you’re young coming in, it seems like every game is tough.”
The programs at Regis Jesuit and Legend provide microcosms into the rapidly improving health of high school baseball in the Denver area. The Regis Jesuit program is the more established of the two simply because Legend is such a new high school, but there are similarities, particularly in the number of high-end prospects each school is producing.
As part of its coverage of the High School Great Plains Region (Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota), PG takes a bit of a closer look at these two programs, separated north to south by only a little more than 10 miles of busy Parker Road from Aurora to Parker.
MATT DARR IS STARTING HIS SECOND SEASON AT REGIS JESUIT HIGH SCHOOL after spending the previous five years at Denver Christian High School, a small private school located in Lakewood; in 2013, Darr’s final season at the school, Denver Christian won the CHSAA Class 2A state championship. Before that, he had spent time as an assistant at the University of Northern Colorado up in Greeley.
The Raiders finished 21-5 overall (11-0 in the Continental League) last spring after losing to Rocky Mountain High School out of Fort Collins in the CHSAA Class 5A championship game. Regis Jesuit had last won a CHSAA state championship in 2011 when Brodie Weiss, the son of Colorado Rockies manager Walt Weiss, was a sophomore; Walt Weiss was head coach at Regis Jesuit in 2012.
Early this week, Regis Jesuit was voted the preseason No. 1 team in Class 5A by CSHAANow.com, a group that allows state coaches and selected members of the state media to participate in the voting. Regis Jesuit is also ranked No. 39 in the Perfect Game National High School Preseason Top-50 Rankings, the only Great Plains Region school in the rankings.
“This is definitely a top-end program in Colorado year-in and year-out,” Darr said. “I feel like we’ve got more of a reloading type of thing then rebuilding and I think we should be a team that’s going to be up there year after year.
“The reputation here is very good and we’re getting a lot of the better kids in Colorado; a lot of kids want to play here.”
The players playing there in 2015 include five seniors (class of 2015) ranked among the top-30 prospects in Colorado and four more juniors ranked among the state’s top-18. In turn, that select group includes senior third baseman Matthew Schmidt, a Texas signee (No. 6 Colorado/No. 478 nationally) and senior right-hander Brent Schwarz, a Rice signee (No. 9/top-500).
“I would argue Brent is probably the best returning kid in the state, so that’s certainly an anchor that you can count on in the rotation,” Darr said of Schwarz, who was 7-2 with a 2.54 ERA as a junior. Infielder Aiden Cameron and outfielder Thomas Jahde are among the other key senior returnees.
The top juniors are right-hander Bo Weiss, another one of Walt’s sons who has committed to North Carolina (No. 2/97); outfielder Quin Cotton (No. 8/top-500) and right-hander Travis Marr (No. 14, top-1,000); sophomore right-hander Caleb Sloan (No. 1/top-1,000) is expected to slip seamlessly into the rotation.
As proof of the depth Darr had with his pitching staff in 2014, Weiss accepted a scholarship offer from North Carolina as a sophomore pitching for the Raiders’ junior varsity team.
Regis Jesuit graduated six players from last year’s state runner-up team that moved on to Division I programs this year, and two others – shortstop Max George and left-hander David Peterson – would have taken that route had they not been drafted. George was a sixth-round pick of the hometown Colorado Rockies while Peterson – a PG All-American who missed most of his senior year with a broken leg – went in the 28th-round to the Boston Red Sox.
“That really helps just from a notoriety and marketing standpoint,” Darr said. “People see that and obviously they want to be a part of that.”
Darr and his staff held tryouts last week and then made the necessary cuts over the weekend, ultimately telling between 40 and 45 kids at four levels that at this time there just wasn’t any room for them in the program. He met with the survivors early this week and explained to them the nature of the process.
“I just told them, ‘You guys have to understand that you should be proud and it’s a privilege to be a part of this program,” Darr said. “I said, ‘Here we are, a preseason number-one team in the state of Colorado even though we lost all of those kids (from last season).
“’Rankings don’t mean a whole lot but it does speak to our reputation and the respect that the other coaches have for our program … and if anything it should tell you guys that you’re part of something pretty special but you’re also going to have be special to play in this program.’”
LEGEND HIGH SCHOOL OPENED ITS DOORS ON HILLTOP ROAD IN PARKER in the fall of 2008, and Scott Fellers was named the school’s first baseball coach before the 2009 spring season after spending the previous 11 years at nearby Douglas County High School – another member of the Continental League.
In the early years, the program played only limited freshmen, sophomore and junior varsity schedules but a talented group actually led the Titans into the first round of the Class 3A playoffs in its second year (2010). Fellers had some players transfer in for the third year and the program jumped up to Class 5A.
The return of Legend High School senior shortstop and Dallas Baptist signee Jordan Stephens is a big reason why Legend is considered a top team in Colorado (Photo: keyserimages.com).
Just like that, before anyone could say “a Legend is born” the Titans advanced all the way to the 2012 Class 5A state championship game where it lost to perennial power Cherry Creek, capping a 19-6 season. They made it back to the 5A final four in 2013 and finished 15-9 before stumbling to 7-12 last season.
Thirteen seniors are on this year’s roster determined to make sure Legend doesn’t fall back into the pack for a second straight season.
“I think we’ve got it figured out,” Fellers said. “That first four or five years, those kids were us as varsity coaches the whole five years, and it makes a big difference when I can coach a kid for all four years as opposed to getting them when they’re juniors or seniors.”
This just might be Fellers’ most solid group to date with six seniors ranked among Colorado’s top-30 prospects, three of whom Perfect Game ranks in the top 384 nationally. Six seniors have signed with colleges, including three to NCAA Division I schools.
Outfielder Greg Pickett will be on hand for a full season this spring, and that should put a bounce in the step of the entire Legend Titans’ baseball community. A Perfect Game All-American last summer who is ranked the No. 2 top prospect in the state (behind Shumpert) and No. 27 nationally, Pickett was limited to 10 games with the Titans after transferring in from Grandview High School (Aurora) the previous year.
The 6-foot-4, 215-pound Mississippi State signee hit .387 (12-for-31) with five home runs, a triple and two doubles in those 10 games, driving in 19 runs and scoring 12 more; the 19 RBI led the team despite coming in nine fewer games than many of the other regulars.
Senior shortstop and Dallas Baptist signee Jordan Stephens, and senior right-hander and New Mexico recruit Peyton Remy are also back in the fold for the Titans. Stephens (ranked Nos. 4/284) hit .306 (15-for-49) with six extra-base hits, 11 RBI and 10 runs. Remy (5/384) posted poor numbers for the Titans in 2014 but was named to the all-tournament team at the 18u PG MLK Championship in January after flashing a 91 mph fastball.
“Those three are the core for us this year,” Fellers said. “They’ve all played super high-level club (summer ball) … and they’ve done a good job of trying to be the leaders of the team and set the expectations high.”
Other seniors on the Titans’ roster that have signed letters-of-intent are Jared Case (Garden City CC), Mathew Aguayo-Shannon (Eastern Arizona CC) and Kyle Morse (Monterrey Peninsula College); unsigned seniors Addison Kaasch and Dakota Marley should also contribute. The signings stand as further proof that the Legend HS program is fitting nicely into the baseball fabric of the Front Range.
“We preach being a good teammate; the whole key to success is holding each other accountable and playing as a team,” Fellers said. “The game is already tough enough and we know that we have a lot of special kids here that can play baseball, but if you don’t play as a team you’re not going to win, and I think you see that every level.”
CALENDARS IN HOMES ALL ALONG THAT 10-MILE STRETCH of Parker Road that connects the cities of Aurora and Parker already have circles around Monday, April 27. On that date, at 4:15 p.m., the Preseason No. 1 Regis Jesuit Raiders will make that short drive and face the No. 5 Legend Titans in their only meeting of the year, a game that just might decide the 5A/4A Continental League championship.
“I mean, Regis, I just can’t beat them; it seems like they’re a thorn in my side,” Fellers said, a hint of exasperation in his voice. “(The league is) so competitive from top to bottom and that’s what makes it so tough; there is never an easy game.”
Darr has always been a big believer in assembling a non-conference schedule where ever he’s coached. Regis Jesuit will play non-league games against CHSAA 5A No. 3 Cherry Creek and No. 9 Chatfield, and then face No. 4 Legend, No. 6 ThunderRidge, No. 10 Mountain Vista and 4A No. 7 Ponderosa during league play.
Sandwiched in between those games against Colorado competition is a trip Bradenton, Fla., March 30 through April 2 for games at IMG Academy where Regis Jesuit will face teams from all across the country.
Both Darr and Fellers feel their teams can compete nationally simply because Colorado’s top prospects are developing into elite national prospects. Fourteen of Colorado’s top-15 prospects from the class of 2015 have signed with some of the most prestigious D-I colleges in all the land.
“The opportunities now in Colorado, theirs is a highly competitive summer, a highly competitive fall – some kids are going to the Perfect Game tournaments and showcase during the winter,” Fellers said. “I just think there’s more opportunities and that’s helped our kids become better all across the state.”
As an example, just about every prospect named in this piece attended at least one of the first three Rocky Mountain Showcases. “I think Colorado in the last five years has dramatically improved as a baseball state,” Darr said. “Last year was unbelievable – there was just a ton of good kids – and it really seems like it’s getting better and better.”
The high schools in the Denver Metropolitan Area are most certainly ready for a “Spring Break” and the top teams from Aurora to Parker to Highlands Ranch are ready to show just how good baseball can be on the Front Range. They seem to be following the right formula.
“We’re just trying to instill in these kids work hard, come to practice and try to get better every day, and be a good teammate,” Legend’s Fellers concluded. “That’s all we can really preach.”