Stewart Johnson
It's a good time to be a baseball team in northeast Tarrant County.
Per 'The Dallas Morning News,' three of the current ten-best 6A teams are located in and around the Highway 114 and Highway 26 corridor: Southlake Carroll (ranked no. 1 with a 17-5-1 record), Keller (no. 7, 18-5) and Trophy Club Byron Nelson (no. 8, 14-5-1). And, Keller Timber Creek just missed the cut for the top-ten.
It doesn't stop there: in the 5A classification, Grapevine continues to be the top team in all of Dallas-Fort Worth, sitting at no. 1 yet again with a 19-2 record.
(A quick caveat: Carroll recently dropped a district game against Northwest Eaton, a team it certainly was favored to beat. We'll see if this affects the Dragon's ranking next week.)
Individually, Grapevine is led by Luke Esquivel, one of the best hitters in the metroplex with a .448 batting average. His brother, Lale Esquivel, is right behind him with a .443 batting average.
Carroll's domination is the definition of a team effort: zero Dragons appear in the top 30 in batting average, earned run average, runs batted in, home runs, stolen bases, strikeouts or pitching wins.