… … …

IF THERE IS ANY HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL PROGRAM IN THE COUNTRY that knows how to carry unmatched success from a previous season right into the next, it is the one head coach Chan Brown oversees at Georgia’s Parkview High School.

When the Panthers won the Region 8-AAAAA championship in 2010, their first since 2006, they rattled off five more in a row from 2011-15 (‘13-15 were 8-AAAAAA). After they won the GHSA Class AAAAA state championship in 2011, they came right back with a second straight in 2012 (Parkview also won a non-PG national championship in 2012; it was No.5 in PG’s final rankings that year).

The Panthers enter the 2016 season after hitting the title trifecta in 2015: A Region 8-AAAAAA championship, a GHSA Class AAAAAA state championship and a Perfect Game National Championship (other outlets also named Parkview their national champ). Five very effective seniors – including current Seattle Mariners farmhand Ryne Inman – graduated from that team; seven starters, four of whom are primary pitchers but will play both ways, return.

So how likely is it that powerful Parkview will take a tour around the golden triangle for a second straight season? Perfect Game likes its chances well enough to install the Panthers in the No. 2 position in the 2016 PG High School Preseason National Top 50 Rankings.

“I think the confidence from a player’s standpoint carries over and they want to keep the tradition, per se, going for Parkview,” Brown told PG when asked what his players’ mindset is like going into the 2016 campaign. “They want to stay high in the national rankings and win a state championship and ultimately try to put themselves in position to try to win another national championship.”

There are plenty of programs just within Georgia’s state borders that would like nothing more than to block Parkview’s path to a second straight national crown. The Panthers will have to again battle traditionally strong Brookwood and Archer just within their own region, and Milton, Marietta Pope, Marietta Walton and Woodstock Etowah all promise to be formidable in Class AAAAAA; Buford and Cartersville from other GHSA classes also represent national championship threats. But none appear to be as salty as Parkview.

The Panthers proved a year ago that an unbeaten start to the season isn’t necessary in a team’s quest for a PG national championship when they dropped their third game of the campaign to unheralded Lassiter. They seemed to find their footing when they traveled to PG Park South at LakePoint in Cartersville and won the prestigious PG High School Showdown, beating nationally prominent teams from Tennessee, Florida and Georgia on their way to the championship.

They left LakePoint with an 8-1 record and a No. 4 ranking in PG’s National High School Top 50. The Panthers were feeling pretty good about themselves when they arrived at Brookwood High School three days later and then dropped a 3-2 decision in their regional opener.

Brown called it a “defining moment” in the season. He called a team meeting, they came up with the saying “Be Special” and proceeded to win their final 26 games, including a 2-0 victory over Walton in the GHSA AAAAAA championship game.

Some key components of that team graduated, including Inman, a right-hander who was 11-1 with a 1.18 ERA and 87 strikeouts in 71 innings. But what matters most now is who is back, and it’s a group that features five seniors and two juniors who were very instrumental in the Panthers’ success in 2015.

Several years ago, Brown started an annual ritual where he invites all of his seniors over to his home for a big steak dinner. After the steak is polished off, Brown takes the group down into his basement where he and his staff explain the expectations they have of each senior for the upcoming year, and challenge each one of them to be a team leader.

“The biggest thing we’re asking of our senior class this year is to lead the young kids that are going to have to step in and step up for us to be the type of team that we’re used to being,” Brown said. “We have some talented young kids, they just need some guidance from the coaches and the senior group.”

It starts, appropriately enough, with a pitcher and catcher who are both ranked in the top-100 nationally in the class of 2016, are both prominent alumni of last year’s PG National Showcase and are both headed to prestigious SEC schools unless, of course, they are gobbled up in June’s MLB Amateur Draft.

Will Ethridge is a 6-foot-5, 200-pound senior right-hander who PG ranks as the No. 73 overall national prospect in his class and who has signed with Ole Miss. He was nothing short of brilliant as a junior, finishing 13-0 with a 1.47 ERA with 49 strikeouts in 71 1/3 innings. He was named to the Top Prospect List at the PG National and was a four-time all-tournament selection last summer while playing for the Georgia-based Team Elite Prime.

“Ethridge kind of takes the reigns from Inman,” Brown said. “Last year when Inman took the ball you could just tell the team had a certain swagger with him on the mound. I see (Ethridge) taking that role this year and the team behind him understanding that we have our number-one guy on the mound so here we go, let’s win this game.”

A second key cog returning is senior catcher Austin Biggar, the country’s No. 96-ranked prospect in the class of 2016 who signed with the University of Georgia. The 6-foot-1, 200-pound Biggar, another summertime standout for Team Elite Prime who was also on the Top Prospect List at the PG National, slashed .370/.492/.760 for the Panthers last spring, with team-highs of 11 home runs and 48 RBI.

“Austin’s development as a catcher since day one when he walked into Parkview has been skill-wise but even more leadership-wise,” Brown said. “He’s becoming a really good vocal leader for us and his work ethic alone speaks for itself; he sets an example just from that.”

The Panthers’ pitching depth is fortified by the return of junior left-handers Cody Collett and Caleb Mitchell, and senior right-handed side-arm closer Garrett Fowler. Collett was 4-0 with a 1.38 ERA in six appearances and 25 1/3 innings in 2015; Fowler had a couple of saves and a 0.75 ERA in 10 appearances and 9 1/3 innings and Mitchell made four appearances out of the bullpen.

Seniors Brian Kregal and Johnathan Whitmer join Biggar, Ethridge and Fowler as two of the several top returning position players looking to bolster the lineup. Whitmer hit .292 with four doubles, four home runs and 20 RBI in 32 games and Kregal batted .262 with six doubles, a triple, two home runs and 20 RBI, also in 32 games.

“We feel good about our pitching; we think our pitching is going to make us strong,” Brown said. “We’re going to focus on the pitching and defensive side, and I feel good about our lineup 2 through 6. … I feel good that eventually we’re going to be pretty strong seven or eight deep in our lineup, but right now we’re definitely deep 2 through 6 or 2 through 7 with those senior guys that had a lot of experience last year.”

About eight years ago, Brown and his staff of eight assistant coaches started working with the kids in the Lilburn area at a pretty young age, and he points out that this senior group has been with him for eight or nine years now. They’ve been doing the Parkview drills and hearing the Parkview coaches’ terminology since they were 8 years old, so that by the time they enter their freshman season they’re pretty well in tune with what’s going on in the program.

“I think the expectations start at an earlier age than even ninth-grade for us now,” Brown said. “It’s kind of the pride of our community with the way we handle baseball around here and the system we have in place to try to get these kids up to the level of play that we want them at.”

The community certainly has bought in. Brown talks with pride about how well the student body is represented at the Panthers’ games and how much of a home-field advantage the Parkview teams enjoy. He feels certain that the hometown fans will latch onto this team just like they did last year’s national championship team, simply because of the way they play.

“Our varsity team as a whole possesses the hunger and the love and the passion of the game, and the harder that we play they’re going to be able to jell together and be there at the end,” Brown said, before concluding the conversation with some final words about the school’s winning history and tradition. Are more regional, state and national championships in the cards this season?

“We have a thing around Parkview about how are you going to be remembered,” Brown said. “and we’re not talking about their last game, we’re talking about their class. There is a list on our outfield wall of all of our regional championships and state championships, so we talk about how many signs will your class leave with; that’s big for them. All of them ultimately want to hang two signs these guys know that if they hang two and play the game the right way they have a chance to hang three.”