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High School  | General | 2/7/2020

Keeping up with the Joneses

Jeff Dahn
Photo: Camden Hill (Bob Jones HS Baseball)

Southeast Region Top Teams, Prospects | High School Preview Index

Alabama’s high school baseball programs have consistently put a competitive and entertaining product out on the field, and as the state’s teams prepare to begin the 2020 regular season next week, the rest of the country is starting to pay attention.

When Perfect Game released its PGHS Preseason Top 50 National Rankings late last week, four Alabama schools found spots in the top 44.

It’s a quartet of talented teams led by a school with a straight-forward name and a roster filled with top prep prospects eager to represent themselves well not only at home this spring but on several prominent national stages, as well.

Bob Jones High School, located in the city of Madison, is one of the largest enrollment schools in the state, and at No. 8 the Patriots are the highest ranked of the four Alabama schools in PG’s Top 50. They are joined in the rankings by No. 25 Russell County (Seale, Ala.), No. 32 Hoover (Ala.) and No. 44 Smiths Station (Ala.).

Jared Smith, an Alabama native, is starting his fifth season as head coach at BJHS, and he’s intimately familiar with the other top programs in the state. He led the Patriots to the Class 7A (big-school) state semifinals in 2018 and a 7A state runner-up finish last season and knows well the challenges his Pats will face this spring.

“Alabama high school baseball, it’s outstanding,” Smith told PG during a telephone conversation early this week. “We’re probably on the back-burner a lot because football is so big in our state, but baseball coaches and people who know baseball know that Alabama baseball is really, really competitive.”

The BJHS Raiders should be among the most competitive once they kickoff their regular season at Grissom HS in Huntsville on Feb. 13. Smith welcomes back 10 prospects – eight of whom have signed with/committed to NCAA Division I schools – who were key contributors as underclassmen a year ago.

Three of the seniors – outfielder Dylan Ray, do-everything utility guy Caden Rose and infielders Mitchell Daly and Camden Hill – were named Class 7A First Team All-State by the Alabama Sports Writers Association (ASWA) last season; senior right-hander Sam Maynard was a second team selection.

Ray (ranked No. 240 in the 2020 class) and Rose (No. 391) are both Alabama signees; Daly (No. 277) is headed to Texas and Hill (No. 287) has signed on with PG College No. 6-ranked Auburn. Those four combined to slug 33 of the 51 home runs the Pats hit last season.

The senior right-hander/first baseman Nick Brown is another highly regarded prospect, a Wisconsin-Milwaukee signee ranked No. 284 nationally.

The junior class (2021s) is headed by third baseman Slate Alford, an Auburn commit ranked No. 166 in his national class. Catcher/first baseman Max Soliz, an Arkansas commit ranked No. 347, has transferred into Bob Jones and will be eligible to play once the season gets underway. All of those college commitments are an added bonus, but humility takes a front-row seat at BJHS.

“It’s nice when you have those guys that are able to play at that level and we take pride in it for our program because if that many Division-I programs are wanting your guys you must be doing something right,” Smith said. “We get fired up anytime a kid gets a scholarship offer … because they get to keep doing what they love and hopefully get a little bit of their school paid for.

“Any kid who wants to play college baseball regardless of the level, our goal is to help get them there,” he added. “We tell kids that if you can start for us we can find you a place to play, it just depends on where.”

Quite a few of the seniors on this year’s Patriots roster have been on the varsity unit since they were freshman, so they more than know the drill and are realistic about the expectations. As soon as they returned home from Montgomery after last year’s loss to McGill-Toolen in the best-of-3 state championship series, they were ready to get back after it.

But they had to wait. Smith didn’t bring the returnees back together until he called a team meeting in December, when they talked about the future.

“Really, we’ve just been talking about getting complacent,” he said. “The difference between a state championship and (finishing) runner-up was so close. Is that one rep in the weight room? Is that one ball you didn’t run-out hard in a game? You can’t quantify what it would be, but we were just so close.”

A native of the small town of Phil Campbell in north-central Alabama, Smith became the head coach at BJHS ahead of the 2016 season after previously coaching at Dothan HS in the far southeast corner of the state; Madison was much closer to home.

The Patriots won 28 games in Smith’s first season which ended with a loss in the first-round of the Class 7A state playoffs but dipped down to 19 wins in 2017. They finished 36-14 after a loss in the state semifinals in 2018 and then took the next step last year by winning 42 games and advancing to the best-of-3 state championship series.

Building a program that would eventually be recognized nationally wasn’t on anyone’s mind those first few years as Smith and his staff worked tirelessly just to get on the radar in north Alabama.

“That was kind of the first step and then the ultimate goal was to play for state championships and be known statewide, and we kind of got to that level,” Smith said. “Now to be honored in the national rankings … it’s really great PR for our program.”

But it’s more than just great PR, of course. It’s noteworthy recognition of a job well done during past seasons but Smith is confident that his players know the rankings are nothing more than what somebody else thinks about their potential. A high preseason ranking isn’t going to help them win any ballgames in and of itself.

“We’re definitely blessed and humbled by all the recognition our guys get, and they deserve it for the time they’ve put in over the last four or five years,” Smith said. “We’re where we want to be. Now we just have to finish it off in terms of a state title.”

There are dozens of other teams that have their eyes on an Alabama state championship in 2020, including those mentioned previously along with McGill-Toolen. Bob Jones has regular-season games scheduled with Russell County and Smiths Station and there’s always a chance it could meet Hoover at the PG High School Showdown in Hoover the first full weekend in March.

Russell County is led by senior right-hander Logan Austin, an Auburn signee ranked No. 202 in the class of 2020; Smiths Station senior right-hander Carson Swilling is another Auburn recruit ranked No. 166; Hoover counters with senior outfielder Robby Ashford, an Oregon signee ranked No. 123 and junior outfielder Evan Radford (Southern Miss, No. 286).

Another interesting factoid regarding Alabama high school baseball in 2020 is that five of the top junior pitchers in the country are Alabama schoolboys. They include Florence right-hander Grant Taylor (LSU, No. 42-ranked 2021); Chilton County left-hander William "Pico" Kohn (Mississippi State, No. 74); Westbrook Christian righty Samuel Dutton (LSU, No. 82); Vestavia Hills righty Grant Cherry (Georgia, No. 121) and Dothan right-hander Chase Allsup (Auburn, No. 142). There’s just a lot of talent within the state’s boundaries.

“You can find some really, really good baseball in the Birmingham area, the Huntsville area; Mobile’s got some really good teams,” Smith said. “We’re probably not as nationally known as California and places like that – it’s probably a little better out there than here – but compared with teams in similar situations I would put an Alabama team against anyone in the country.”

The Bob Jones Patriots will have two very big opportunities to see how they stack-up against many of the top teams in the country.

They’ll be at the aforementioned PG High School Showdown in Hoover March 5-7, joining a field that includes not only the No. 32-ranked host school and No. 44 Smiths Station but five other teams PG has ranked in its preseason top 37. That number includes No. 3 DeSoto Central out of Mississippi and No. 10 Parkview out of Georgia.

They will also be at the prestigious USA Baseball National High School Invitational in Cary, N.C. That’s an event that features 16 teams from across the country, including powerhouse Orange Lutheran HS out of Southern California, the winner of the tournament each of the last three years.

Smith enjoys putting his teams up against what he called “the best of the best” at those national tournaments. His is a team that will be tested time and time again back home – especially after the state playoffs get started – but facing unfamiliar teams at unfamiliar venues can serve as some added motivation for his players.

“It just helps your practices, your offseason because they know the type of teams they’re going to play in these tournaments,” he said. “I love playing out-of-state teams because it’s just different and you get to meet some new people.”

The Patriots are now winding down their preseason practices and scrimmages ahead of next Thursday’s regular-season opener. It should be an exciting season of high school baseball in Alabama, one which will start out with everybody just trying to keep up with the Joneses.

“The effort is there, the focus is there,” Smith said of the Patriots’ mindset going in. “It was a great offseason and so far it’s been a great (two) weeks of full practice, so there’s nothing we can complain about; we’re ready to get out there and start playing a little bit. … We’re just living in the moment, man, and we’re enjoying it and trying to keep everybody healthy.”
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