2018 Southwest Region Preview | 2018 Perfect Game High School Preview Index
It was only about two weeks before tryouts were scheduled for the ballplayers who were interested in being a part of the 2016 Phoenix Pinnacle High School baseball team, and the program was still without a head coach.
Hoping to bring some stability to the program, Paradise Valley School District administrators decided to go old-school and brought in a veteran skipper who had retired in 2015 after serving as head coach at ca
Coaxing Roy Muller out of retirement was a popular move, and in his second year on the job at Pinnacle, he led the Pioneers to an Arizona Interscholastic Association (AIA) Class 6A state runner-up finish and a 26-9 record.
“It’s been said that talent wins games, character wins titles, and we’re trying; we came pretty close,” Muller told Perfect Game during a telephone conversation last week. “(The program) used to be very competitive and (its teams) played with a lot of character within the community. It was a very respected program and I think over the years they kind of lost track.”
Respect for the program has certainly returned. When the Pioneers open the 2018 season on Wednesday (Feb. 21) they’ll do so as the No. 16 team in the PG High School Preseason Top 50 national rankings and as the No. 2-ranked team in the PG HS Southwest Region (Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah) behind only Las Vegas (Nev.) Bishop Gorman HS.
“We’re working hard, but just because you win games doesn’t mean you’ve got a good program,” Muller said. “It takes everything from the top down: administrative support, boosters, parents, coaches, players and everybody. But we’re making a lot of good strides and getting a lot of good feedback. There’s talent here, but there’s talent everywhere.”
Only three position-player starters return from that state runner-up team – first baseman CJ Schauwecker, center fielder Jacob Ferguson and third baseman/right fielder Patrick Donovan. The Pioneers did lose eight seniors to graduation, including current Philadelphia Phillies farmhand Jake Holmes and the right-hander Jason Nelson (Central Arizona CC).
But with senior right-handers Tyler Woessner and Mason Gray back, and top left-hander Calvin Schapira expected to return from minor arm soreness late in the season, the pitching staff looks especially sound.
“I think we’re going to be fine as long as we put the bat on the ball and our pitchers stick to what they know how to do,” Ferguson told PG last week. “We’re a close team, and I feel like a lot of guys on our team really play together. They’re not selfish; they do what’s right for the team.”
With Muller now entering his 41st season as a high school coach, he’s honed the message he delivers to his young players at the start of every season; it hasn’t changed much over the years. And, as might be expected, it’s a simple one and it comes from the heart.
“My message to them is you’ve got to have fun,” Muller said. “This is a game and you’ve got to have fun … but we only get them for a few months out of the year sometimes because they’re so committed to the other stuff. They’re out their showcasing their skills but they’re not developing as a baseball player … and they’re not doing the little things; we want them to be a complete player.”
It’s a message that resonates with ballplayers who are young enough to be the 68-year-old Muller’s grandsons. Baseball is timeless in the way it reaches across generations and brings everyone together on the same page.
“It’s just nice having a guy here with that much experience – 40-plus years of coaching,” Schauwecker told PG. “He does bring a lot of old-school baseball to us, which is nice; he teaches us some new tips and tricks. He’s just really a nice head figure to have and it really solidifies this team, I think. That guy has done it all and we definitely appreciate him, without a doubt.”
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THAT ROY MULLER IS COACHING AT ALL IS AMAZING IN AND OF ITSELF. He’s endured a lot over the course of his career, as the fine writer Richard Obert described in a piece published April 16, 2017, on azcentral.com. Obert began:
“After the 54th orthopedic surgery in his life last November (2016), Roy Muller put his Phoenix Pinnacle High School baseball cap above his bed with a sign that former Arizona State coach Pat Murphy gave him several surgeries ago.
“It says: ‘Tough times don’t outlast tough people. Never give up.’
“Muller … walks with a slow, awkward gait, one leg shorter than the other. He sometimes uses his fungo bat as a cane. But he still has the mustache and the enthusiasm … despite surgeries on both of his hips, his back, his shoulders, his knees, his ankles, his hands and his wrists.
“Known as the bionic baseball coach, there is nothing more therapeutic than watching his players take the field. ‘This is medicine for me,’ he said. ‘When I get back on the field, got on the grass, I felt like I was tall again. I could walk.’”
Coming off the 2017 season that the Pinnacle HS enjoyed, Muller proved that he could, indeed, walk tall once more.
The Pioneers finished the regular-season 20-8 which included a 5-5 record in the challenging 6A Desert Valley League. It was more than good enough to reach the postseason, and Pinnacle entered the 16-team, double-elimination AIA 6A playoffs as the No. 8 seed.
The road to the championship game in the double-elimination format is a harrowing one, as might be expected; the Pioneers had to play six games just to reach the final.
“It’s one pitch at a time, one out, one inning until it’s over,” Muller said before recalling that his team trailed No. 1-seeded Basha by two with two outs and nobody on and rallied to beat them in a second-round game. “We got on a little bit of a roll, took it one game at a time and just started focusing on that day and not looking too far ahead. …
“We had a few balls bounce correctly, but we had a lot of confidence and they played hard; I was very proud of them,” he continued. “They really overcame a lot of adversity.”
They opened with a win over league rival and No. 9-seed Sandra Day O’Connor and then posted that come-from-behind win against Basha. Pinnacle hit a major bump in the road when it lost to No. 5 Corona del Sol in a third-round game and dropped into the losers’ bracket.
“We lost to Corona del Sol and got put into the losers’ bracket but that didn’t really deter us,” Schauwecker said. “That didn’t really deter us because we knew we were going to make it to (the championship) game; we were so determined.”
The Pioneers stormed past No. 13 Boulder Creek in an elimination game and then avenged its loss to Corona del Sol in a losers’ bracket semifinal. The two teams had to meet for a third time in an elimination semifinal game which Pinnacle won, 5-2.
They then found themselves in the championship game at Tempe Diablo Stadium – the Cactus League spring training home of the Los Angeles Angels – where they would face No. 10 Chandler Hamilton, which was looking for its second straight 6A state championship. Hamilton prevailed, 6-4, but Ferguson had an RBI triple, Donovan drove in a pair of runs and Schauwecker drove in a run.
“We had a great squad going in,” Schauwecker said. “Our goal from the very beginning was to make it to that state championship and we never lost sight of that goal. We had some rough patches here and there, but it didn’t really matter because we were so focused on making it there. We wanted to win it, and unfortunately we didn’t, but that’s what we have this year for.”
Ferguson was grateful for the experience and believes this year’s returning players were able to take something away from it:
“Playing in the state championship game for any baseball player is like a dream,” he said. “Having that experience and playing in front of that many people in that big of stadium, you take in your feelings, the environment, the competition, the anxiety – just everything together is so overwhelming but it’s also one of the best feelings in the world.”
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ROY MULLER’S BASEBALL EXPERIENCES ARE VAST AND VARIED. In addition to his 38 years at PVHS, he spent one year as an assistant at a college program, three years as a Director of Youth Baseball Instruction in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and served as an associate scout for the New York Yankees from 1995-2006 and again in 2015.
Even with all those accomplishments, 2017 was special for Muller in at least one regard. It marked the first time he had ever coached in an AIA state championship game, and he wants the players that he has back from that team this year to appreciate just how special that is.
“I’ve told them that you’re the only guys as baseball players at Pinnacle High School since it was built (in 2000) that have stepped foot on the field after vying for a state championship,” he said. “All the players in our program look up to you guys, so how you handle yourself, how you play, they all look up to you because they want to be like you.
“We’ve been there, so now we’ve just got to remember that and embrace it but work harder and try to get a little bit better.”
Earning a berth in the 16-team playoff field is not easy for the Pinnacle Pioneers and top senior prospects like Woessner (ranked No. 346 nationally, an Arizona State recruit by way of Central Arizona CC), Schapira (No. 378, Southern Cal), Schauwecker (top-500, Grand Canyon University) and Gray (top-1000, Utah Valley University).
The 6A Desert Valley League features many of the top programs in the Valley and the entire state of Arizona. It’s the home of PG No. 36-ranked Scottsdale Horizon, Phoenix Sandra Day O’Connor, Glendale Mountain Ridge, Scottsdale Desert Mountain and New River Boulder Creek.
O’Connor, with PG All-American shortstop Nolan Gorman, and Mountain Ridge, with PG A-A right-hander Matthew Liberatore, have both been invited to the prestigious 16-team USA Baseball National High School Invitational in Cary, N.C., at the end of March; Gorman and Liberatore are projected to be first-round picks in June’s MLB Amateur Draft.
Pinnacle’s win over O’Connor in the first round of last year’s state playoffs came after it had lost to the Eagles twice during the regular season.
“Last year we were rated (high nationally) because we started out 17-2 and I said guys that’s wonderful, that’s great, enjoy it, but guess what, we haven’t played a league game yet,” Muller remembered with a chuckle. “You can be pretty good and go .500 in our league – and we went .500 in our league – but at the end of the year it really helps us (in the playoffs).”
Schauwecker agreed with his head coach: “We probably have the toughest division in the state,” he said. “No game is a guaranteed win, and every time we go out there we’ve got to grind it out, play good, fundament baseball like we know how to play and just win the game. Playing these (regular) season games gets us really prepared for the playoffs.”
Overall, Muller feels like the health of high school baseball from top to bottom in the state of Arizona is very good. From his lofty vantage point, he watched it trend from year-to-year, sometimes very good, sometimes good and sometimes not so good.
“There’s more parity involved,” he said, “but there’s enough talent here and a lot of things going on in Arizona where they have a lot of opportunities for things to do that help move career on. It’s always been good, it’s just different, as I like to say.”
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AS HEAD COACH ROY MULLER PREPARES TO SEND YET ANOTHER Phoenix high school team into yet another season of competitive ball, it’s easy to sense he likes what he’s seeing from his third collection of Pinnacle Pioneers. But he also realizes they’re going to have to develop their own style of play that might not mirror that of last year’s state runner-up.
“We have to be a totally different team than we were a year ago,” Muller said. “We’ve still got pitching, our defense can be very solid – you practice the routine stuff, you don’t practice the big stuff – but offensively we have to be a big manufacturer of runs.”
His players are firmly in his corner and willing to do whatever it takes.
“He plays a lot of old-school ball, and it’s nice,” Ferguson said. “He tells us a lot of things that we really wouldn’t know, and he’s got a lot of old tricks ups his sleeve, techniques that actually work out really well; they’re easy to understand and put into game situations.
“I believe that he helps us become better ballplayers and just good young men in general with everything that he’s teaching us.”
Schauwecker was quick to add: “This is a family here; we’re about as tight as they come. We play such a team game, it’s ridiculous. … We’re not jealous of anyone else; we play as one squad and that’s how we play. … This is one team and we have one goal, and that’s to win the state championship game. I don’t think anything is going to stop us this year.”
A central concern going into the season is getting the big (6-foot-5, 225-pounds) lefty Schapiro healthy and up-and-running so he can contribute late in the season. Muller acknowledges that there are no easy roads and no shortcuts to take on the way to the state championship game, and every team has its own concerns, its own stories to tell.
“But I think if we play hard, if we play team baseball and with high character, a lot of good things can happen,” he said. “I’ve done this a long time, and I’ll tell you what, good talent sure helps. There’s talent out there and I think it’s all about how you handle them; a lot of them can play.
“We don’t try to re-invent anything – we try to let them play – but they need discipline, they need structure, they need consistency,” Muller concluded. “We do a pretty good job of preparing them, but talent sure makes me look a lot smarter, as long as I don’t screw it up.”
And, as the Pinnacle Pioneers community knows fully well, that’s not likely at all.