2017 Perfect Game High School Preview Index
Alaska’s history as, first, a United States Territory and then as a U.S. state can be described as brief, at best. The 664,000 square-mile land mass wasn’t organized as a territory until 1912 and wasn’t admitted to the Union as the 49th state until 1959, just 58 short years ago.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the history of Alaska high schools with established baseball programs is also very brief; the first Alaska School Activities Association (ASAA) state tournament wasn’t played until the turn of this century.
But prep baseball is gaining traction in this country’s northern-most state – its most northern region lies inside the Arctic Circle – and the game is no longer a second thought, or in select cases a second option, among the state’s young athletes.
Anchorage, the state’s largest city population-wise, has six high schools with baseball programs and Bartlett, Dimond, East Anchorage, Service and South Anchorage are among the state’s best.
South Anchorage won the 2016 ASAA state championship, and for the past three seasons has enjoyed the services of senior infielder/right-handed pitcher Jonny Homza. He is a player Perfect Game ranks as the No. 355 overall prospect in the national class of 2017; he has signed with the University of Hawaii.
“Anchorage produces some good players so, yeah, you get to see some good guys up here,” Homza told PG during recent telephone conversation. “There aren’t as many kids up here as there are down in the Lower 48 and because of that, there’s just not as much talent.
“It’s hard because our season is really short; it’s hard to play a lot of games,” he continued. “There are some disadvantages, but it’s good … (and) I really feel like the talent up here can be as good as anywhere.”
The PG High School Northwest Region (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming) will never produce elite high school prospects by the truckload like more populous parts of the country are able to do – Montana and Wyoming do not sanction baseball programs in their high schools – but it’s not a vast wasteland, either.
When PG Vice President of Player Personnel David Rawnsley assembled his 2017 PG Northwest Region Dream Team, he included prospects from all four high school baseball-playing states, including Alaska’s Homza as the third baseman. Of Homza, Alaska’s 2016 Gatorade Player of the Year, Rawnsley wrote:
“(He) is the first Alaskan to be honored with PG All-Region recognition, but the 6-foot-1, 180-pound (infielder) has competed well in national-level events. …He has a short, quick, right-handed swing that handles velocity very well, and is quick and agile in his defensive actions.”
Taylor Nerland, a fifth-generation Alaskan, is starting his third season as the head coach at South Anchorage HS -- he was an assistant there for two years -- after previously coaching at Cook Inlet Conference rival Anchorage Service HS. South advanced to the state championship game in each of Nerland’s first three years at the helm, with the 2016 championship coming after back-to-back runner-up finishes in 2014-15.
“I’ve been coaching at the high school level for 16 years and there have been very few that have come along with the talent and the baseball skills that Jonny (Homza) possesses,” Nerland told PG when asked about his top prospect. “But what sets Jonny apart is that he is just so driven.”
Nerland believes that Homza got that inner-drive from his brother Willy, and not necessarily because they have the same genetics. Two years younger than Willy, Jonny was constantly being compared to his older brother, which drove him to not only want to match Willy’s accomplishments but exceed them if he could.
“Jonny was the (Alaska) Player of the Year last year, and just about every time I talk to other people, they’ll say, ‘Oh, yeah, I just saw Jonny at the cage doing his work,’” Nerland said. “He’s got that inner-drive that is seldom found with the guys who possess all those skills, as well.” With Homza in the dugout, it’s a special spot in time for the South Anchorage High School baseball program.
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ACCORDING TO NUMBERS PROVIDED BY the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFSHSA) and the ASAA, there were 725 players on the rosters of 30 Alaska high school programs during the 2015-16 school year.
Information on the ASAA website noted that during the early years of Alaska high school baseball’s evolution, the school club teams in Anchorage and Fairbanks served primarily as “feeder programs” for the summertime American Legion Baseball (ALB) teams.
As more high schools from across the state expressed interest in establishing their own programs, the ASAA created four, three-team regions. In 2000 it held its first state tournament that featured the four regional champions squaring off – there were two semifinal games, a third-place game and a championship game. East Anchorage High School beat Juneau High School in the 2000 championship game to become the first state champion.
The first six state tournaments followed that format, but in 2007 the event expanded to eight teams with the top two teams from each region – now called conferences – qualifying for the state meet.
South Anchorage High School was established in 2004 and the Wolverines earned their first state tournament berth in 2007 and didn’t finish in the top-four (they won the academic state championship that year with cumulative team GPA of 3.40). They returned to the tournament in 2011 and this time went home with the school’s first state championship after beating Dimond HS in the title game.
That started a string of five straight state tournament appearances, with championships coming in 2013 and 2016, runner-up finishes in 2014 and 2015 and a third-place finish in 2012. Last year’s 3-1 championship game victory over Eagle River Chugiak HS was especially sweet because it was the Mustangs who topped the Wolverines, 5-0, in the 2015 championship game.
Homza was the star of the game – played at Anchorage’s Mulcahy Stadium – belting a solo home run while also pitching a complete-game four-hitter with nine strikeouts. He was joined on the all-tournament team by graduated senior Matt Kley and current SAHS senior Parker Johnson.
“It was pretty gratifying getting that win,” Homza told PG. “When we went into the 2016 season, no one wanted to lose (in the championship game) again.”
There were six seniors on the 2016 Wolverines’ roster but a lot of the heavy-lifting was done by the 11 underclassmen that return this year. The senior outfielder Johnson joins Homza as one of the most impactful returnees; he is receiving interest from several D-I programs.
“This group is good,” Homza said. “We’ve all played with each other since 9-10 (years old) Little League, and we’re really a tight-knit group. We all get along really well and we work hard, so it should be a really good season this year.”
Added Nerland: “We’ve got some spots to fill but we also have some guys who were kind of nipping at (the seniors’) heels (in 2016), and if they weren’t executing we had guys we could put right in there. Those guys are excited to step into those roles this year; we’re going to have a lot of senior leadership with this group, as well. …
“Team-wise, I think we’re going to be a little bit more together than we were last year, but we have to see how they’re going to execute on the field; that’s always the question.”
The 2017 Wolverines participated in their first scheduled practice of the season March 1 and, yes, it was held indoors (there was still a lot of snow on the ground). In fact, Nerland explained, most of the work they do over the next two months will be done indoors.
When the short high school season ends for the Alaska preps, most of them will head straight into an American Legion season that carries them into the summer months. Others will head to the Lower 48 – Seattle is a popular destination – and get hooked up with travel ball teams where they hope to see a little better competition than what might be found at home.
In summation, the high school season is often referred to as a sprint. A team works inside for several weeks, goes outside and plays about a dozen games over a three-week period, and then hopes to play in the state tournament. The ALB season, on the other hand, runs through the early summer and a team can look to play as many as 35 to 40 games.
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BOTH OF HOMZA’S PARENTS, TOM AND JULIA, ATTENDED THE University of Vermont, and Tom also attended the U. of Alaska-Fairbanks; today, Tom is a geologist and Julia an artist. Jonny was born and raised in Alaska, as was his older brother Willy, a 2015 SAHS grad.
Willy Homza was the co-Most Valuable Player of the Cook Inlet Conference as a senior in 2015 and is now playing baseball at Brown University (Providence, R.I.) in the academically prestigious Ivy League. Willy and Jonny had the opportunity to play together at SAHS during the 2014 and 2015 seasons.
“Me and my older brother, when we were growing up it just seemed like we were always playing with baseballs,” Jonny Homza said. “There was never really a point where I just decided I wanted to play baseball, it was just always a ‘thing’ and it just kind of continued that way.”
The younger Homza has eagerly jumped into the summer travel ball scene, visiting the Lower 48 for five PG WWBA tournaments since January 2015; he was also at the Area Code Games in Long Beach, Calif., last August.
He played with Gamers Baseball Alaska at the 2015 14u and 16u PG MLK Championships and the 2016 PG underclass western national championship, all in the Phoenix area, and was named to the all-tournament team at both the 14u PG MLK and PG western underclass. Homza was also named to the all-tournament team at the 2017 PG MLK West Upperclass Championship playing with the Dbacks Scout Team.
His SAHS teammates – all seniors this spring – Johnson, Max Costello and Sladen Mohl were also on the Gamers Baseball Alaska teams that Homza was a part of in January 2015. Another member of those teams was 2017 right-hander Bryce Swofford from Juneau-Douglas HS, a Central Arizona CC recruit that PG ranks as the No. 2 overall prospect in Alaska (t-500 nationally), one spot below Homza.
“It’s always a lot of fun to go play baseball in hot weather,” Homza said. “It’s valuable to see the other talent that’s out there and kind of expose yourself to different types of situations. I’ve been pleased with the way my game has (developed) but I wouldn’t say I’m satisfied; you always want more. I feel accomplished but I’m still striving for better things.”
A kid from Alaska committing to play college baseball in Hawaii might seem kind of quirky when first considered, but when Homza explains it, it makes perfect sense. “It’s going to be pretty different, but at the same time it will be kind of similar in the way that you’re not really with the rest of the states,” he said. “But, yeah, environmentally and culturally it’ll be pretty darn different.”
Homza is already used to a high school baseball culture that is “pretty darn different” from those in most of the country’s other states. Nerland believes it takes a lot of what he calls “self-desire” for a prospect from Alaska to move up to the NCAA Division I level. He wants the guys in his program to be motivated, eager to learn as much about the game as they possibly can and willing to put in the work necessary for the team to be successful.
“I think that’s a key for success anywhere, but especially here in Alaska where there isn’t as much availability,” he said, speaking of restrictions brought on by the state’s climate. “In Texas or in California or wherever, you can step outside and go play catch with your dad, but here you’ve got to be resilient and get a nice tube sock and good piece of tape and go throw in the garage. It’s just a little more difficult for them to get that work in that you want to see them get in.”
South Anchorage is a relatively new high school but it has already established itself as a powerhouse on the Alaska high school sports scene. The school offers 17 different extracurricular activities in traditional sports like basketball, football, baseball, softball, swimming, volleyball and wrestling, but also more regional pursuits like hockey, cross-country skiing and riflery; there are also bowling and robotics teams.
But for an elite, baseball-only guy like Homza, the highs he’s experienced at this Alaska high school have been especially unique, and he treasures each one.
“It’s been a blast, it’s been a lot of fun; something that you won’t forget ever, really,” he said. “With the people that have been involved – friends, coaches, my brother – and the success that we’ve had, it’s been pretty great. South has always had a good baseball team and it’s always just kind of assumed that it will stay that way.
“All of the players and the coaches know that we have to (maintain) that reputation and so you know what you’re getting into,” he concluded. “You know that you’re going to be part of a good program.”
Coach Nerland, the fifth-generation Alaskan, sees it much the same way: “As a product of the culture, I love where it’s been and I love where it’s going,” he said. “We just want to see baseball in Alaska continue to go in this right direction where we have more guys playing and more guys continue on to the college level.”