The hottest 4A team in the Houston area!

A popular 5A baseball website wrote an article about our team that was very flattering! Here is the text of the article:

Wednesday, May 7, Stang Gang As Hot as You Can Get

By Randy Byers © Houston5ABaseball.com

Heading into their area round play-off series with Galena Park, the Friendswood Mustangs are quite possibly the hottest team in all of high school baseball here in the Houston area.

A nine game winning streak where the Mustangs have outpaced their opponents by a whopping (76-14) in offense and along the way, clinching their first district title since 2002, has the boys in blue chomping at the bit to get back on the field and keep the streak going.

The Mustangs have been knocking on the door of great things since 2002 when they were District Champions and Area Finalists and 2003 where they were Area Finalist again. In 2004 they took another huge step finishing as a Region Finalist but fell back a step in 2005 when they were a Region Semi-Finalist. A disappointing 2006 season found the Mustangs on the outside looking in hoping for better things in 2007. That season marked a noticeable improvement when Friendswood grabbed a second place (10-2) finish in district but were quickly shown the door in the play-offs.

The 2008 Mustangs might be on the verge of something big. A 23-4A District Championship and an impressive (12-2) record where they dominated the last two thirds of district play. All this in quite possibly the toughest (4A) district in all of Region III has the Friendswood faithful giddy. You have to go all the way back to March 25 to find the last blemish on their schedule when they dropped a (5-3) decision to Angleton. Since then, they have been nearly unbeatable playing their closest contests, a (5-3) victory over the upstart Manvel Mavericks, and a (6-4) victory over Texas City in their last nine games.

The secrets to their success you ask? The answer, pitching, pitching, and more pitching. The Mustangs are blessed with three of the best arms in the district and all of 4A for that matter. Senior Andrew Beasley (San Jac signee), senior Stephan Myers (Alvin signee), junior Kevin Thornton, and junior Kyle Burris are leading the charge for Friendswood. Beasley, the first of the seniors to sign, posted an impressive (.88) ERA with (57) strike outs in (55.6) innings pitched. Myers has been an impressive addition to the varsity pitching staff posting (66) strike outs in just (49.3) innings pitched. Thornton has picked up a (5-0) record in just (19.3) innings pitched. Toss in (28.3) innings and a (3-0) record from Burris and the Mustangs have the makings of a pitching staff that could find them in Austin in a few weeks.

At the plate, the hard charging Mustangs are lead by senior Stephan Myers who has posted a very impressive (.439) batting average with (2) home runs, (5) doubles, and (24) RBI. Senior outfielder Matt McLaren stand in at (.356) while junior Cody Bergeson banged out a (.348) average with (2) home runs, a triple, and (5) doubles while driving in (15). Junior Austin Fitzpatrick added (20) RBI, with a home run and (6) doubles and junior Alex Anastas cracked out (4) home runs while driving in (21).
The Mustangs are firing on all cylinders ending up the regular season at (19-8/12-2) and can only hope they haven't cooled off while awaiting their area round opponent.

The web address is here, but the article is about half way down the page and a little tricky to find.

It has been a very exciting few weeks for our team! We defeated Galena Park in the 2nd round of the playoffs and advanced to the 3rd round. We won last Thursday and Friday evenings in that series. Friday's game was awesome, with the Mustangs hitting 3 home runs and winning by a solid score of 11-2. I had so much fun watching!

Yesterday we went to scout Barbers Hill vs Bay City, because we will play the winner in the 3rd round. Bay City surprised us by defeating Barber's Hill. They are a good team, and it should be a competitive series this coming week. The game times, dates, and locations are not set just yet, but hopefully we'll know something by tomorrow afternoon. It will most likely be Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Hopefully we will keep the playoff run alive.

Here are a few pictures from our Friday night victory against Galena Park. It's pretty ironic, because my main goal was to get a good photo of Jamie, and his face kept getting blocked by the bar in front of the stands! Oh well, at least I'll have at least another 2 or 3 games to attempt to get a good one. The first 2 pictures are Scott, Charlie, and Jamie (the coaches). The last picture is the team celebrating the win! In the first picture, Jamie is the one standing with his hands on his hips. In the second picture, he's the one in the middle with his face blocked (darnit!).