2017 Perfect Game High School Preview Index
Dylan Phillips arrived at the spacious indoor facility at Perfect Game Headquarters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the morning of Feb. 11 eager to participate in the PG Pitcher-Catcher Indoor Showcase but also still riding a wave of excitement from all the baseball-related highs he had experienced in 2016.
A junior at the all-male Creighton Jesuit Preparatory School in Omaha, Phillips’ baseball calendar is jam-packed with Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA) games in the spring and American Legion games in the summer, both as part of Creighton Prep-affiliated teams.
Consequently, he doesn’t have the opportunity to present himself often on the national showcase scene. February’s PG P-C Indoor was only the second PG showcase he had ever attended and the first one was held back in 2015.
But on that February day, Phillips – a 6-foot, 195-pound left-handed pitcher/first baseman from Omaha PG ranks as a top-500 national prospect in the class of 2018 – was looking for nothing more than to get some work in before his 2017 spring season at Creighton Prep arrives later this month.
“I wanted to come over here and throw live for the first time and kind of get back into the swing of the season,” he told PG that day. “It’s a little bit different format and it takes a little while to get to use to it, but it’s fun to see where your numbers are compared to everybody else.”
When compared to just about everyone else in attendance at the PG P-C Indoor, Phillips enjoyed a decided edge. By attending Creighton Prep and wearing that Junior Jays jersey, he represents one of the most historically successful baseball programs in the PG High School Great Plains Region (Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota).
To say the program at Creighton Prep is storied is not doing it justice. Junior Jays teams have won 10 NSAA state championships since 1940, with five of those coming under the direction of 17-year head coach Pat Mooney (2001, 2002, 2004, 2012 and 2016). The program did go without a title between 1942 and 1969 but bounced back with eight NSAA Class A (big-school) titles since 1969, including the one last spring.
Perfect Game Vice President for Player Personnel David Rawnsley has been a member of the national scouting community for nearly 30 years and lived in Omaha for 15 years before making a move to South Carolina in 2016. He became quite familiar with the Creighton Prep program during the time he lived in Omaha.
“Creighton Prep is a big part of the community (in Omaha),” he said this week. “It’s the Jesuit high school that carries the name of Creighton (matching the university), and they seem to always be the powerhouse in boys’ sports in the state of Nebraska. It’s an all-boys school with tremendous tradition and that really carries them in all sports.”
That is not to say Creighton Prep is a banquet onto itself while the state’s other big schools battle for table scraps. In baseball, specifically, Omaha Westside (winners of three straight NSAA Class A championships from 2013-15), Papillion-La Vista South, Millard West and Millard North have all enjoyed their moments in the sun during the 21st century, and won’t return to the shadows anytime soon.
The Junior Jays team that won last year’s Class A state championship boasted a roster that featured eight seniors that started almost every game, with Omaha World Herald first-team all-state selections Joey Machado (Nebraska-Omaha), Brett Vosik (Kansas) and Brandon Bena (Iowa Western CC) among the notables.
The top juniors on last year’s squad that will be the senior leaders this season include right-hander Joshua Culliver (Minnesota), right-hander Tommy Steier (Neb.-Omaha), left-hander Zach Philbin (Hutchinson CC) and outfielders Will Hanafan and Nate Reiner.
This year’s junior class is led by (all uncommitted) Phillips, first baseman Aaron Mischo, catcher Owen Richter and right-hander Zach Firmature; the latter joined Phillips at the PG P-C Indoor in February.
“What Prep always seems to have that maybe that other top schools in Nebraska don’t, is they have the depth,” PG’s Rawnsley said. “They have big, physical athletes and the depth … that other programs just don’t seem to have.”
The 2016 team finished with a 28-4 record, one of the best in the programs’ long history. The win total included a 9-8 early round state tournament victory over Lincoln Southwest, a game in which the Junior Jays had to rally from a seven-run deficit; they beat Millard West in the championship game, 13-8.
“It was really a lot of fun,” Phillips said of the run to the state championship. “We had a bunch of seniors and they kind of led the way for us. We had five or six underclassmen (on the varsity) so the seniors really set a good example and we just had some fun being out there.
“We had the mindset that that was what we were here to do,” he said. “We kind of just stayed even-keeled all the time and kept doing what we were doing.”
After winning the 2016 NSAA Class A state championship, the Junior Jays continued their winning ways deep into the summer playing as the Five Points Bank team in American Legion Baseball (ALB). They rolled over the other Nebraska Legion programs, won the ALB Central Plains Regional and took a 58-3 record into the American Legion World Series, played Aug. 11-16 in Shelby, N.C.
Once there, the Omaha boys waxed a team from Kennewick, Wash., 14-5, in their ALB World Series opener before being eliminated after successive losses to Salisbury, N.C. (5-2) and Rockport, Ind. (8-3). Mooney played upperclassmen in the field exclusively throughout Legion Regional and World Series play, but Phillips, Steier and Culliver combined to throw 28 innings from the mound.
“(The program is) use to winning and the coach (Mooney) does a really good job,” Phillips said. “When we get out on the field, everyone’s having a good time … and playing for Coach Mooney, it’s just really a lot of fun. It’s pretty relaxed, and he lets us have our fun in the dugout as long as we don’t get too out of hand.”
Although he will be enjoying his junior season at Creighton Prep in 2017, Phillips will be one of the Junior Jays’ most experienced players.
In addition to the innings he played during the 2016 varsity and American Legion schedules, he also played in three high-profile Perfect Game tournaments in September and October:
The PG WWBA Kernels Foundation Championship in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with the Nebraska Prospects 2018-Kenny; the PG WWBA Underclass World Championship in Fort Myers, Fla., with the same team; and at the PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla., with Marucci Elite. He was named to the all-tournament teams at both the PG WWBA Underclass World and PG WWBA World Championships.
Phillips was joined on the Nebraska Prospects 2018-Kenny team that finished as runner-up at the PG WWBA Kernels Foundation Championship (4-2-0) by his Creighton Prep teammates Hanafan, Philbin, Richter, Cooper Allen and Matt Fritton.
Junior Jays mates – all juniors in 2017 – Allen, Richter, Mischo, Firmature and Cameron Blossom were also part of the Nebraska Prospects roster at the PG WWBA Underclass World; Firmature joined Phillips at the PG Pitcher/Catcher Indoor in February.
“it was really a last-minute thing going down to Jupiter, but it was really cool seeing all the scouts and playing against such great competition,” Phillips said. “It’s nice to get out there and play with some other kids but it’s also great to put on that Creighton Prep jersey.”
Rawnsley was quick to point out that it isn’t just the baseball program that stands tall at Creighton Prep. The basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer and swimming programs have all won at least one state championships since 2004 and swimming and tennis joined baseball as state champs in 2016. But there is even more to it than that.
“Creighton Prep is one of those schools that is very serious about its academics,” Rawnsley noted. “This is a school that where if you go to Creighton Prep, you are going to go to college and they take that part of life very seriously.”
Dylan Phillips, who has not committed to a college, performed well enough at the PG Pitcher-Catcher Indoor Showcase to earn inclusion on the event’s Top Prospect List, and it’s likely that his school work was the furthest thing from his mind that day. Repeating the successes of 2016 in the spring and summer of 2017 certainly was, however.
“We want to get back to the state (championship game) and win it again,” he said. “We have a bunch of young guys and we know we’re going to have to grow, but we think we’re going to be pretty good again. We return three of our top pitchers so we’re going to have a pretty good core group right there.”