2018 Texahoma Region Preview | 2018 Perfect Game High School Preview Index
The high school baseball season has arrived in the south-central Texas city of San Antonio, which means the players, coaches, parents and fans of the program at Reagan High School can start thinking about the possibility of a road-trip up to Round Rock in a couple of months.
Round Rock, just north of Austin, is the home of Dell Diamond, which in turn is the home of the Round Rock Express, the Triple-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers. Dell Diamond is also the site of the Texas University Interscholastic League (UIL) state baseball tournaments in classes 1A, 2A, 3A, 5A and 6A.
The Reagan Rattlers, under the direction of 14th-year head coach Chans Chapman, made that drive to Round Rock and Dell Diamond last spring and brought home their second UIL Class 6A state runner-up trophy in four years. It’s a new year, and the Rattlers are determined to take care of business during the regular season and head that direction once again.
“The first thing we talk about is our number-one goal, and that’s to get to Round Rock and the state tournament,” Chapman told Perfect Game in a recent telephone interview. “We have a shirt that says ‘# (hashtag) 98’ because Dell Diamond … is 98 miles from Reagan High School. We talk about that (and) we talk about what it’s going to take to get there.”
Reagan HS starts the 2018 season ranked No. 7 nationally in the PG High School Preseason Top 50 Rankings. It is the second highest-ranked team in the PG HS Texahoma Region (Texas, Oklahoma) behind only No. 5 Cypress Ranch.
The Rattlers finished 31-9 in 2017 after their loss in the state championship game and return a core group of six seniors from that team: Outfielder Porter Brown (ranked No. 243 nationally, a Texas Christian signee), outfielder Seth Morrow (top-500, Wichita State), shortstop Hilton Brown (t-500, Northwestern State), left-hander Cal Carver (t-500, Wichita State), catcher Josh Killeen (Wichita State) and right-hander/infielder Dalton Brieger Northeast Texas CC).
Sophomore right-hander Travis Sthele is a Texas Longhorns commit ranked No. 39 nationally in the class of 2020.
“From my freshman year all the way to senior year, I’ve watched this group of guys grow together and mold as a team,” Brown told PG during a separate telephone conversation. “On and off the field, we hang out with each other, we’ve played on the same teams with each other since 12u … and we know how each other plays.”
Something else Chapman likes to tell his players that being a Reagan Rattler is not about showcasing individuals but about showcasing the team and presenting the program in a positive light. That comes before any individual awards or individual accolades, and if the team performs up to its potential and its own expectations, those individual honors are going to come along anyway.
“Usually every year we’ve been fortunate where we’ve had kids committing to Division-I’s,” he said. “Now we don’t have six guys every year like that, but this year is kind of a different year; I think six Division-I guys is a lot for any high school team, but every year we have kids going to play college baseball somewhere.”
The Rattlers compete in UIL 6A region IV District 26 with six other San Antonio high schools: Churchill, Johnson, Lee, MacArthur, Madison and Roosevelt. They share the same home field at the Blossom Athletic Facility, a complex that includes a football field, a gymnasium and a pool and serves the entire district.
As important as it is for the Rattlers to get to the state tournament, winning a state championship would be the greatest accomplishments of all. San Antonio high schools do not have a history of success at the event, at least not while playing in the UIL’s largest (big school) classification. In fact, SA’s big schools can claim only one UIL state title, and that was won by Highlands HS 50 years ago, in 1968.
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THE REAGAN HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL PROGRAM HAD LOGGED THREE VARSITY seasons before Chapman arrived in 2005, and each one of those seasons ended in the UIL Class 6A regional finals, one win away from the state tournament.
Chapman made advancing to the four-team state tournament in Round Rock a priority from the outset, but he also knew nothing would come easy. The Rattlers won 26, 29 and 32 games in his first three seasons on the job (2005-07) but could never get past the regional semifinals.
They took the next step each of the next two seasons, winning 37 games in 2008 and 31 in ’09, and appeared in the regional final both years. But, just as in the program’s first three years, Reagan couldn’t clear that hurdle; a state tournament berth remained a pipe dream.
It stayed that way for four more seasons, up until the spring of 2014. The Rattlers finally broke through that year, winning a regional championship and earning a seat at the table at the Class 5A state tournament.
They got settled in at Dell Diamond in early June and promptly beat Humble Atascocita, 5-4, in the semifinals. Next up was Dallas-area power Lewisville Flower Mound in the championship game, which Reagan lost, 10-0; they finished 34-7 that season.
Reagan didn’t have to wait long to earn a return trip to Dell Diamond. It won its second reginal championship in four years last spring, returned to the 6A state tournament and knocked off local favorite Round Rock, 7-1, in the semis.
That brought a match-up with Houston-area power Deer Park in the title tilt, and the Rattlers fell short, 7-2; they finished 31-9, the fifth time in 11 years the program won 30 or more games.
“Now that we’ve made it a couple of times, it’s spread through the program,” Chapman said of his teams’ winning attitude. “That’s what the kids believe in, that’s what the parents believe in, and for us to have a chance to achieve that goal every year, that’s what we have to have; it’s kind of come full-circle. We think we have a really good team this year, and we’re hoping to get back and just win that last game this time.”
The outfielder Brown said he and his teammates take a lot of pride in the program’s winning history and feel an obligation to always perform at their best when they’re wearing a Rattlers’ uniform. It takes a lot of hard work.
“We are always practicing,” Brown said. “Coach Chapman, he sees that as a tradition, and we practice when its 40 degrees, we practice when it’s raining … and we are taught in the Reagan program that everything we do we have to compete with a football mentality.”
That requires a mindset of, hey, I’m going to work harder than you, I’m going to be better than you and I’m going to beat you, and not only on the physical side of the game but on the mental side as well.
Like so many other talented players, Brown and his Reagan teammates spend the summer playing travel ball, using the experience to not only get much sought-after exposure but to stay in baseball shape during the months after the high school season ends.
Brown took time away from baseball to play football all the way through his junior year, and this school year, he quit playing football and took the fall off all together.
“I like to take a little time off because playing the year-round – every single day, every single minute – can really put a lot of stress on your body,” he said. “I feel like you’ve just got to take a few months to just rest up and get your muscles all good before you pick it back up.” That time is here.
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SIX TEXAS SCHOOLS ARE SLOTTED IN THE TOP 39 IN THE PG HS Preseason Top-50 Rankings, with two coming from the Houston Metropolitan Area (No. 5 Cypress Ranch; No. 31 Magnolia) and two from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (No. 22 Rockwall and No. 28 Rockwall-Heath). The two outliers are No. 7 Reagan (San Antonio) and No. 39 Amarillo.
Chapman grew up in Halletsville, Texas, about halfway in between San Antonio and Houston and has been around Texas high school and college baseball all his life. When asked if he did, in fact, feel like his program in San Antonio was a bit of outlier, he was quick with his response.
“Up until the last four or five years, that’s exactly what we were,” Chapman said. “But now I feel like we’ve established ourselves, and while we’re not quite there yet with Houston and Dallas, we’re making strides to get there; we’re headed in the right direction.
“I’ll be the first to tell you that Houston and Dallas set the standard in Texas, but I would also be willing to say that in the last five years we have closed the gap. I would say that baseball in San Antonio is very healthy and I think it’s getting better.”
He’ll get no argument from his players. Brown admitted that he had no idea what the teams over in Houston or up in Dallas have to offer this year, but what he does know is that no matter who the Rattlers face this spring, that opponent is going to know it was in a dogfight.
“Whether we win or lose, I want to be satisfied by walking off the field saying, ‘They might have been better than us, but at least we played to the best of our abilities,’” he said. “There are good baseball programs all around Texas in all the state (classifications). You can get beat by a 5A team, you can get beat by a 4A team; it depends on who plays better and who really wants to win.”
Brown’s head coach agreed: “There is just a large number of (programs) in Texas with quality players,” Chapman said. “I would really be hard-pressed to believe that anybody has the quality of baseball throughout their state like Texas does.”
He backs up that claim by pointing to some of the country’s top NCAA Division I programs. The rosters at PG No. 3 Texas Christian, No. 4 Texas Tech, No. 15 Texas A&M, No. 21 Houston, No. 22 Sam Houston State and No. 23 Texas were built around prospects from Texas high schools. And some of those roster spots are filled by ballplayers from San Antonio who played at UIL 6A Region IV District 26 schools.
“I love our district; we have a really good district,” Brown said. “I feel like when we play each other in our own district, it makes us all better. There’s a good competitive (environment) and it’s like an all-out battle. You see a similar situation in the playoffs where you have to fight to win, and that makes everyone a better overall team.”
The Reagan Rattlers’ mission this season is a simple one: Become the first program from San Antonio in 50 years to win a Texas big-school state championship. It’s the stated goal and the team is getting a lot of preseason attention as a result (i.e. PG’s No. 7 national ranking).
The players seem to be taking at the attention in stride. Chapman calls them a “pretty focused group” and one that seems to be handling everything the right way before a single game on the schedule has been played. These guys really don’t care that much about being recognized as one of the top teams in Texas during the preseason; it’s the postseason that matters.
“The reason we’re ranked so high is mostly because of what last year’s team did and what we have coming back; it all looks good on paper. They know we’re going to have to back it up once we get on the field,” Chapman said.
It’s only a matter of keeping that focus and doing the little things that win ballgames, according to Brown: “We’re just going to have to come up in the clutch at the time that we need it. It’s all about who gets hot at the right time during a playoff run and making sure everyone is healthy at the same time.
“The thing about this year is that I feel like we’ve got a target on our back,” he concluded. “It’s going to be a test of our ability to see how we do facing adversity.”