Hey, at least the rankings were on point.
Flower Mound and Argyle — both of which spent time as the No. 1 in The Dallas Morning News’ area 6A and 5A baseball rankings — will play for a state championship this week in Round Rock. Flower Mound (35-10-2) will play Cypress Woods (38-4) in the 6A state semifinals on Friday at Dell Diamond. Argyle (34-10-2) will play Boerne Champion (33-11-1) in one 5A state semifinal on Thursday. Frisco Reedy (28-15) — a state tournament newcomer — will play Magnolia West (34-5) in the other 5A state semifinal.
Flower Mound, which beat Denton Guyer in the 6A Region I finals, won a 5A state championship in 2014 and has won 30 games or more in four seasons since head coach Danny Wallace was hired ahead of the 2013 season.
This year’s team is loaded. Its lineup, which averages 5.5 runs per game, features three Power Five commitments in the top half of the order: Texas A&M pledges Sam Erickson and Adrian Rodriguez and Arkansas pledge Zane Becker. Its 1-2 starting pitching punch of Oklahoma pledge Jacob Gholston and TCU pledge Zack James has helped Flower Mound limit opponents to 2.1 runs per game.
Gholston and James combined to pitch 13 2/3 scoreless innings in two starts against Guyer in the regional finals with 19 strikeouts. They’ll be needed against a Cypress Woods team that ranks second in the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association statewide rankings and averages 7.3 runs per game. Cypress Woods, a first-time state tournament participant, features a lineup that includes Texas A&M pledge Brady Sullivan, TCU pledge Sam Myers, Houston pledge Tristan Russell and Texas State pledge Ethan Harris.
Cypress Woods, the 6A Region II winner, beat Rockwall-Heath in a three-game regional semifinal series in May; Heath beat Flower Mound in an April non-district game.
If Flower Mound were to beat Cypress Woods in the state semifinals, its competition wouldn’t get any easier. It would face third-ranked Austin Westlake (40-4) or top-ranked Pearland (37-6-1) in the championship game. A Dallas-area team has won the 6A state championship in each of the last four seasons (Southlake Carroll won in 2018, 2019 and 2022, Rockwall-Heath won in 2021).
Argyle — which has played in five state tournaments since 2014 and won three 4A titles (2015, 2018 and 2019) — may be the favorite against a Boerne Champion team headed to its first state tournament. Led by junior Dallas Baptist pledge Colton Roquemore (.401 batting average, eight triples, 39 RBIs), Argyle has averaged 6.5 runs per game this season and scored seven or more runs in four playoff games.
Roquemore is one of five Argyle hitters batting .300 or better, joining junior Alex D’Angelo (.341), freshman TCU pledge Grady Emerson (.336), junior Dallas Baptist pledge Park Prater (.333) and senior Conor Lillis (.300).
Prater has been one of the Dallas area’s best pitchers this season, too, with a 0.60 ERA and 74 strikeouts in 58 innings pitched. He had three hits and pitched six innings of two-run ball in Argyle’s game two win over Lubbock Cooper in the 5A Region I finals on Friday.
Argyle, which rose to the 5A classification prior to this school year, was a 4A state finalist last season.
On the other side of the bracket: Reedy, which beat district rival Frisco Wakeland in the 5A Region II finals to clinch its first trip to the state tournament.
Reedy will be the fifth Frisco ISD team to play in the state tournament. Wakeland has done so three times (2022, 2017, 2010) and Frisco High did so in 1984. Sophomore Ethan Downum, a Texas A&M pledge, hit .413 with 17 stolen bases in the regular season for Reedy, which finished third in District 9-5A.
Under first-year head coach Michael Sepanek, a former Frisco Liberty assistant, Reedy beat Wakeland in a three-game regional final series. Sophomore Jack Jorgenson, who had a 1.18 ERA in the regular season, pitched a complete game shutout in the decisive third game, a 1-0 Reedy win.
Reedy will be on equal footing in the state semifinals. Magnolia West, the state’s seventh-ranked 6A team, will also be playing in the state tournament for the first time.
State tournament schedule
(All 6A, 5A, 3A, 2A and 1A games are at Dell Diamond in Round Rock; all 4A games are at the University of Texas’ Disch-Falk Field)
Wednesday, June 7
1A semifinals
9:00 a.m.: Abbott (21-4) vs. Kennard (22-12)
noon: Nazareth (18-4) vs. Fayetteville (19-6)
2A semifinals
4:00 p.m.: Harleton (35-1) vs. Collinsville (32-6-1)
7:00 p.m.: Shiner (31-4) vs. New Home (30-4-3)
4A semifinals
1:00 p.m.: Canyon Randall (38-4) vs. Texarkana Liberty-Eylau (32-6)
4:00 p.m.: Sinton (37-3) vs. China Spring (35-5-1)
Thursday, June 8
1A and 2A championships
9:00 a.m.: 1A championship
noon: 2A championship
6:30 p.m.: 4A championship
5A semifinals
4:00 p.m.: Magnolia West (34-5) vs. Frisco Reedy (28-15)
7:00 p.m.: Argyle (34-10-2) vs. Boerne Champion (33-11-1)
Friday, June 9
3A semifinals
9:00 a.m.: Boyd (38-5) vs. Maypearl (30-9)
noon: Corpus Christi London (32-3-1) vs. Wall (34-6-1)
6A semifinals
4:00 p.m.: Cypress Woods (38-4) vs. Lewisville Flower Mound (35-10-2)
7:00 p.m.: Austin Westlake (40-4) vs. Pearland (37-6-1)
Saturday, June 10
9:00 a.m.: 3A championship
noon: 5A championship
4:00 p.m.: 6A championship
On Twitter: @McFarland_Shawn
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