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Championship Celebration

Flower Mound Wins Texas State 5A Title

By Jaguar, 06/11/14, 1:00PM CDT

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State title returns to North Texas

From the Dallas Morning News courtesy of Matt Wixon on June 7, 2014.

ROUND ROCK – When a coach decides to make a pitching change, it’s rarely a happy moment for the guy on the mound. But when Flower Mound coach Danny Wallace went to pull Seth Jordan in the fifth inning of Saturday’s Class 5A state championship game, his starter smiled.

“This is great,” Jordan said.

And it only got better for Flower Mound, which earned its first state title with a 10-0 victory over San Antonio Reagan at Dell Diamond. It was ended after five innings by the mercy rule, and on a hot afternoon, it truly was merciful for Reagan.

That’s no slap at Reagan (34-7), which became the first team to get run-ruled in a 5A game since 1999. Flower Mound (34-12-1) was simply too good.

At everything, it seemed.

Flower Mound had 11 hits in the title game, giving it a total of 20 in its two state games. The Jaguars also drew 16 walks, stole eight bases and didn’t commit an error in their first state appearance since losing in the final in 2004.

The result was two impressive, and lopsided, games at the state tourney. The only tense moment at Dell Diamond came when Flower Mound players were about to douse coach Danny Wallace with Gatorade and pitcher BJ Myers yelled, “Not now … he’s got the trophy!”

By the time Flower Mound got done celebrating, everyone had held the trophy and taken pictures with it. It was the moment the players had dreamed about all season.

“If you would’ve asked if this could happen halfway through the season, I would’ve said heck no,” said senior center fielder Connor Wanhanen. “But the way we’ve come together as a family has been absolutely incredible.”

Flower Mound’s offense has also been incredible during the playoffs. The Jaguars were able to rely all season on pitchers Kyle Johnston, who won Friday’s semifinal, and Jordan and Myers. Whether Flower Mound would be able to find enough offense was the question.

On Saturday, the question was answered early.

Mitch Andrews and Tim Millard had RBI singles in the first inning and Noah Hill brought in another with a well-placed squeeze bunt. In the second, Andrews had another RBI, Millard had two and Hill pushed the lead to 7-0 with an RBI fly out to center. Every Flower Mound player in the starting lineup either had a hit or scored a run.

As Wallace was coaching third base during one of the rallies, he thought to himself, “we are really good right now.”

It was the perfect time to be that way. Flower Mound was so good Saturday that by the top of the fifth, Jordan had a nine-run lead and had allowed only one hit. The Jaguars were so deep at pitcher that Myers, the winner in Game 2 of last week’s regional final, hadn’t pitched this week. He deserved to be out there, so with one out, Wallace walked to the mound to replace Jordan, who had thrown only 42 pitches.

Jordan, who was named the game’s MVP, didn’t mind one bit.

“It was hard to go get Seth with the way he was going,” Wallace said. “But he was like, ‘this is awesome.’”

It was awesome, and a few minutes later, it was final. Andrews looped a ball triple the right-field corner and turned it into a walk-off win. He scored the game-winning run on an errant throw, but you could never say that Reagan threw the game away Saturday.

It wasn’t that Reagan made errors. It was that Flower Mound was nearly perfect.

On Twitter:  @mattwixon