2016 Perfect Game High School Preview Index
There was no place the talented trio of prep prospects from Hartland, Wis., would have rather been back on Saturday, Feb. 13 than in frigid Eastern Iowa. This was despite being greeted in Cedar Rapids by single-digit temperatures which were just about as icy as the ones they had left behind in their hometown, which sits roughly 30 miles east of Milwaukee.
And Nate Brown, Ryan Schmitt and Jeffrey Holtz were feeling pretty toasty through-and-through when they gathered at the Perfect Game Headquarters indoor facility for the PG Pitcher-Catcher Indoor Showcase, just glad to be somewhere warm where they could spend a couple of hours thinking about nothing but springtime and playing the game they love.
“I have never done a Perfect Game showcase but I went down to Jupiter (Fla., the PG WWBA World Championship) and had a blast down there; I just really enjoyed it,” Brown, a right-handed pitcher, said on the 13th. “It’s going to be great facing some batters and it will give me a good judge of what I need to get done to get ready for the season.”
That statement was significant. He was referring to the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association’s (WIAA) spring baseball season which he, Schmitt, Holtz and the rest of their Hartland Arrowhead High School teammates will be playing in for a second year when the calendar flips to April.
Brown and Schmitt are highly regarded senior right-handed pitchers and Holtz an equally regarded sophomore catcher for Arrowhead head coach Vince Mancuso’s Warhawks. Wisconsin baseball insiders are picking this team to finish near the top in the Wisconsin Little Ten Conference and expect it to challenge for a WIAA Division 1 state championship.
Even before the season begins, the Arrowhead program is being recognized as one of the best in the Perfect Game High School Midwest Region, which includes all the baseball playing high schools from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. The strength of these northern programs continues to improve every year but it remains an uphill battle to get recognized nationally.
Consequently, only two schools from the PG HS Midwest Region – No. 28 Moeller (Cincinnati, Ohio) and No. 30 Brother Rice (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.) – are included in PG’s Preseason National Top 50 Rankings. No team from the Midwest Region found a spot in last year’s final PG HS Top 50 Rankings a year after Moeller finished at No. 26 in 2014.
Wisconsin is the only state that offers both spring and summer seasons for its baseball playing schools, with 388 now playing during the spring and 49 playing during the summer. Arrowhead High School played spring baseball for the first time in 2015 after more than 40 years of success playing during the summer, including 31 years under the direction of former head coach Tim O’Driscoll.
Mancuso, who this spring is beginning his ninth season involved with the Arrowhead program and his sixth as head coach, said the school’s administration spent the last several years pushing to move the program from a summer season to a spring season.
The reason was a simple one: Most of Arrowhead’s top prospects were electing to play with national travel ball teams during the summer instead of with their high school team and it was a no-win situation all the way around. Hartland Arrowhead, Waukesha Catholic Memorial and Slinger (Wis.) high schools were all eager to make the move, and were finally granted membership into the Wisconsin Little Ten Conference in time for the 2015 spring season.
“(All of the Arrowhead players) embraced it because a lot of the kids that came back and represented our school were playing in three or four different travel leagues but they weren’t playing with each other,” Mancuso told PG this week. “This was a unique opportunity for all of these kids to come together and represent their school and it was interesting to see the dynamics that first year where everybody was playing together; some of these kids hadn’t played together in five or six years.”
The trial run was a success with the Warhawks winning the Wisconsin Little Ten with an 18-0 record and finishing with a 26-2 overall record after a disappointing 5-0 loss to Milwaukee Reagan Prep and ace 2016 right-hander Alec Marsh – an Arizona State signee – in a Division 1 sectional tournament final.
“We were the favorites all year to win it, but that’s baseball,” Brown said. “If you run into that one pitcher on that one day, everything can fall apart.”
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ARROWHEAD GRADUATED SEVERAL VALUABLE SENIORS FROM THAT 2015 TEAM, including top right-hander Jack Bredeson (9-1, 0.34 ERA, 73 Ks, 62 2/3 IP), now at the University of Michigan, and top catcher and leading hitter Mike Bauer (.430, 3 HRs, 28 RBI), now at McHenry County Junior College.
But the right-handers Brown and Schmitt are joined by outfielders Dominic Clementi and Johnny Duranso as the top returning seniors, and the presence of Holtz behind the plate offers stability considering the amazing freshman season he enjoyed.
Brown is a 6-foot-2, 195-pound fire-baller who produced a 92 mph fastball and was named the Top Prospect at the PG Pitcher-Catcher Indoor. A University of Florida signee ranked No. 100 nationally, he was 5-1 with a 0.95 ERA and 53 strikeouts in 37 innings as an Arrowhead junior and also hit .373 with five doubles, two triples, two home runs 16 RBI and 20 runs.
The 5-foot-10, 190-pound Schmitt, a U. of Illinois recruit ranked No. 375 nationally, threw 90 mph at the P-C Indoor on his way to Top Prospect List recognition and is coming off a junior season in which he went 8-0 with a 0.29 ERA and 75 punch-outs in 48 2/3 innings. The 6-foot-2, 180-pound Clementi, a U. of Michigan signee ranked No. 332, slashed .422/.523/.577 in 90 at-bats, with six doubles, a triple, two home runs, 16 RBI, 37 runs and eight stolen bases.
Duranson has been the starting quarterback on the Arrowhead football team the past three years and will play football the next four years at U. of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. He was a first-team all-state selection by the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association last season after posting a slash line of .477/.515/.590 with seven extra-base hits, 27 RBI and 24 runs.
“We’re loaded up with 11 seniors and 10 of them have had some pretty consistent playing time,” Mancuso said. “With Johnny Duranso and Dom Clementi, we have a very athletic team and a very athletic outfield. Everybody’s got a role and I think they figured it out a little bit last year what their role is going to be.”
Holtz is tall and lanky for a catcher at 6-foot-3, 185-pounds, but he plays the position very well and swings an impressive bat. Named the top 2018 prospect at the P-C Indoor, the U. of Indiana commit and No. 122-ranked Holtz was terrific as a freshman at Arrowhead, slashing .465/.521/.662 with 11 doubles, two home runs, 21 RBI and 18 runs.
“At the beginning (of the season) I was a little nervous but then the guys became like brothers and they really helped me,” Holtz said of his freshman campaign. “They got me comfortable with what I was doing and once I got in the groove it just kind of came to me and I felt like was in the right place.”
The switch to the spring season was a boon for the Arrowhead program if for no other reason that it welcomed top prospects like Brown, Schmitt and Clementi back into the fold without jeopardizing their summer travel ball seasons.
“We all knew that the talent was at Arrowhead but none of us played together,” Brown said. “Going into last season we knew we had the talent to compete and we also knew the top talent in our league was all playing with their high school teams and we knew it was going to be a step up from our summer (high school) league.”
Schmitt talked to PG about how much fun it was to be able to play during the spring with all his high school buddies and then take off for the summer playing with other guys who are part of the Madison-based GRB Rays organization. But he quick to add that playing during the WIAA spring season was a learning experience right out of the gate.
“Last season … we really didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “We’ve got some guys who have done it now, and even though we lost a couple of seniors and we’re going to have a few young guys it’s nice to have the kids who did it last year and can say, ‘Hey, this is what it’s got to be and what we’ve got to do because it’s not going to be as easy as you think it is.”
That first season of spring ball made an impression on the young Holtz simply from watching how his older teammates interacted: “It was competitive, but everyone made sure they had fun at the same time,” he said. “Everyone played together and no one had any beefs with anyone else. Everyone was friends so it made it a lot more fun and we were all playing as one.”
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IT IS NOT AN OVERSTATEMENT IN ANY CONTEXT TO CALL ARROWHEAD A FOOTBALL SCHOOL. Warhawks’ football teams have reached the WIAA Division 1 state championship game 13 times since 1993 –including the last four straight – and won six state championships (1993, ’94, ’96, 2007, ’12, ’13). The runner-up finishes came in 2000, ’02, ’03, ’06, ’08, ’14 and ’15.
“We are definitely a football school but we’re trying to make it a football-baseball-basketball school,” Mancuso said. “I think the guys that we have (playing baseball) this year and in the past have taken that step forward, and with Tim O’Driscoll being here for 30 years-plus, he established a dominance in the summer leagues, as well.”
O’Driscoll compiled a record of 742-334 (.690) as the Warhawks’ head coach from 1979-2009. He took the team to the summer league state tournament six times and won state championships in 1979 and 2009; it was the state runner-up in ’75 and ‘06 under O’Driscoll (Arrowhead was the state runner-up in 1973 under former coach Gordon Gill).
“The baseball culture has always been there and it’s always been in the hallways, but it didn’t seem like it was out there on the field before we switched to the spring season,” Schmitt said alluding to the absence of some of the better players. “Now that we’ve made the switch it’s kind of cool to see all the talent that gets to come out there and actually compete.”
The whole baseball culture in Wisconsin seems to be solidifying and becoming more of a recognizable presence over the last several years. The state has produced dozens and dozens of big-leaguers through the years – Jordan Zimmerman, who moved this winter from the Nationals to the Tigers, is a product of Auburndale High School and UW-Stevens Point – but with UW-Milwaukee as only NCAA Division I program in the state, Wisconsin stays off of college baseball’s national radar until the D-III championships get underway.
Individual talent abounds, however, even if it does end up going to school out of state. Last August, Verona (Wis.) Area High School catcher and Arkansas signee Ben Rortvedt, and Indian Trail Academy (Kenosha) shortstop and Arizona State recruit Gavin Lux both played in the Perfect Game All-American Classic in San Diego, a prestigious all-star game that invites only the top 50 incoming seniors in the country.
“I really feel like we can compete with all of the states, and it shows,” said Brown, who earned all-tournament recognition playing with the Chicago Scouts Association at October’s blockbuster PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla. “Having Gavin and Ben go (to the PG All-American Classic) and tear it up down there, and there are a lot of other guys, too. There’s definitely talent in Wisconsin and going down to Jupiter and seeing all the Wisconsin guys compete, we’re right there.”
The aspect of this that makes Mancuso the proudest is the college scholarship offers. He gets excited for kids he calls “baseball rats” who gain the attention of the elite programs from the country’s powerhouse conferences, a kid like Brown who’s going to Florida and the SEC or Clementi, Schmitt and Holtz are headed to top-notch Big Ten schools. And he’s just as happy for the kids who find a perfect fit at one of Wisconsin’s standout D-III or junior college programs.
“In the past it’s been overlooked and I think right now you’re seeing what the state has to offer in terms of talent,” he said. “When you’re talking about the kid out of Verona (Rortvedt) and the Lux kid, those kids are phenomenal baseball players and it’s great to see that Wisconsin is getting recruited.
“Perfect Game has given them a wonderful opportunity to get exposed and be seen with the showcases. With (PG’s) help and with Wisconsin kind of being put on the map a little bit with baseball, people are actually coming in to watch these kids play, which is phenomenal.”
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IT’S DIFFICULT TO UNCOVER MANY NEGATIVES FROM A SEASON IN WHICH A TEAM wins 93 percent of its games, but the early exit from the 2015 WIAA Division 1 playoffs didn’t sit well with this returning group of Arrowhead HS Warhawks.
“We have that chip on our shoulder from last year when we had all the preseason hype that we were going to walk through the state tournament and win the state championship and then we didn’t even come close to where we’d thought we’d be,” Schmitt said. “Coming into this year it’s going to be a little bit different mindset where we know we can’t take any days offs.”
Brown concurred: “We’re going to take it one game at a time; our mindset is we’re 1-and-0 every game. I think last year we got a little cocky, I’ll admit it. We listened to all the hype and all the social media and then everyone saw what happened. So this year, we’re just taking it one game a time.”
The Warhawks’ regular season begins April 1 and will once again include a complete double round-robin slate against the other nine Wisconsin Little Ten schools. Their top competition in the league a year ago came from Watertown and Oconomowoc, two programs that each won at least 21 games; Oconomowoc reached last year’s Division 1 final four before losing in the semifinals to eventual state champion Craig.
“We want to win as many games as possible and hopefully get to state this year,” Holtz said. “One by one, we have to win each game and not think about anything beyond the next game. Our conference is very good, people are committed (to colleges) all around so there are a lot of good pitchers to see and guys who can really hit.”
Spring has definitely sprung at Arrowhead High School and with a year of experience playing in the cool – and sometimes downright cold – Wisconsin spring weather can do nothing but help this year’s band of Warhawks. Mancuso was pleased with the chemistry the team played with last spring almost immediately after welcoming in the juniors – this year’s seniors – who hadn’t been part of the program as freshmen and sophomores.
“They kind of know what the expectations are of our program and they feel more comfortable not only with their teammates but the way I coach them and my coaching style,” Mancuso said. “I think everybody is looking forward to taking another run at it.
“We’re taking the great season we had last year and we hopefully can build on it this year,” he concluded. “Everybody’s hungry this year, too, and they know they have to compete every pitch of every inning of every game if they want to have the success and reach the goals they have set for themselves.”