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Tournaments  | Story  | 6/18/2022

Premier Meeting Expectations in Dallas

Blake Dowson     
Photo: Alexander Solis (Perfect Game)
DALLAS, Texas -- Premier Baseball 2023 Isenhower came into the 17u WWBA South Championship with a goal and an expectation to win the whole tournament. On Friday night in Grapevine against 5 Star Performance 2023 Brown, they got all they could handle.

A big four-run fourth inning ultimately put the game away for Premier, and they hung on to win by a 6-4 final.



“This is what we expect," Premier Head Coach Jeremy Isenhower said postgame. "In fact, I think we could have played a little better. We have to play better to win this thing, I know that.”

Premier Baseball is a program that shows up to each tournament it plays in expecting to be as sharp as possible. The talent on the roster (there are 17 Division-I commits suiting up for them) combined with the amount of time they put in (they practice every day) cooks up an expectation when it comes to competing against other programs.

This is no sandlot ball club.

“Our guys are good,” Isenhower said. “They come ready to play. We’re one of the rare teams that practices every day. We go Monday through Thursday, then they go weight room, field, and cage work four to six hours a day. This team works harder than probably most teams that play summer baseball.”

Isenhower used four pitchers on Friday night against 5 Star. As a peek into the talent on the roster, the commitments among those prospects are the University of Houston, the University of Texas, and Vanderbilt.

Alexander Solis, the Houston commit, was given the start on the mound. Solis gave his squad three solid innings, allowing three hits and one earned run, running his fastball up to 90 mph.

When he handed the ball over to Texas commit Hayden Morris, the game was tied at 1-1.

Morris proceeded to throw the next 2 1/3 innings in the middle of the contest, looking dominant while doing it, striking out five and dialing up his fastball to 91 mph while landing a breaking ball for strikes consistently.

“I felt great. It was kind of different, I’m not used to being a reliever,” Morris said. “Our coach before the game just told me to throw strikes, so that’s all I was trying to do. That’s what my main job is. I don’t throw 100 mph, so I just try to control my curveball and put my fastball in different spots.”

Premier grabbed control of the game while Morris was on the mound, in the top of the fourth inning.

Tristan Russell walked to lead off the frame, and went first-to-third on a Brett House single two pitches later. Travis Sykora then roped a double that appeared to have some top spin to it, but it just kept carrying over the left fielder’s head, and it scored Russell and sent House to third.

Alexander Petrovic followed up Sykora by dumping a ball in front of the right fielder for an RBI single to make it 3-1, a fielder’s choice RBI from Enrique Perozo made it 4-1, and Tracer Lopez moved the score to 5-1 when he beat out a routine grounder to second base, diving head first to beat the throw.

An MJ Seo RBI single in the fifth inning pushed the score to 6-1 in favor of Premier, and Morris, Wyatt Wimberly, and Conner Bennett combined on the mound to hang on the rest of the way.

The team was pretty matter-of-fact afterward, because like Isenhower said, they came to the Dallas-Fort Worth area expecting to win these games. Not out of a lack of respect for any other programs, but because of the belief they have in their talent and the time they have put in.

That was the tone Morris had after the game.

“We expected it coming down here, but it feels good,” he said. “I like winning.”
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