State-bound Grapevine baseball peaking at the right time

After just one season as Grapevine’s assistant baseball coach, Steve Hutcherson took over as head coach and wanted to make sure he accomplished one thing early: do the little things that make a program great.

While watching another batting practice session Tuesday as the Mustangs (33-6-2) geared up for Thursday’s UIL Class 5A state semifinal with Whitehouse (25-11), pitching coach Tommy Maddox marveled at the lengths Hutcherson has gone for his team.

“Look at Hutch there throwing batting practice,” Maddox said. “He’s done that every time this year; he hasn’t broken out the machine once.

“Honestly it’s an expectation really, but that’s the kind of dedication it takes and the kind of dedication these kids deserve. Steve’s done that and more already.”

First pitch is 4 p.m. at Round Rock’s Dell Diamond.

And so Grapevine, which struggled some early on in nondistrict play, finds itself just two wins shy of the school’s first state title in baseball.

How they got there, though, doesn’t seem to be by accident.

The team hit .360 in the regular season. In the playoffs, the bottom of the order is producing as much as the team’s first four hitters.

“There are times this season where we cheered a guy going back to the dugout after striking out,” Hutcherson said. “It was probably an 11-pitch strikeout where the guy battled in the at-bat. There’s nothing wrong with that; I wanted guys to battle and I wanted them to battle without fear of losing their spot in the lineup.”

The Mustangs’ only three playoff losses have been by scores of 2-1, 1-0 and 6-5.

“I knew we were going to be pretty good at the start of the year, but we just needed it to kind of come together,” senior shortstop Ty Jones said. “We do a lot of different things: get hits, lay down bunts, get runners on and just keep pounding.

“I think our 1-through-9 hitters might be the best in the state of Texas and everyone just got hot at the right time. Every guy that goes up there, we have confidence that they’re going to grind out the at-bat.”

Senior left-hander Kyle Flamm (8-1), who is 3-1 in the playoffs, gets the ball in the semifinal. He has pitched one shutout and boasts a 1.61 ERA in five postseason starts.

“We’re just playing better and have more camaraderie than we’ve had in the last three years,” Flamm said. “We’ve all been friends for a while and just think we’re so much better defensively than we’ve been in the past.”

This story was originally published June 8, 2016 at 4:36 PM with the headline "State-bound Grapevine baseball peaking at the right time."