By Toby Bicknell
Texas Scouting Director

The Battle of the Borders took place Sept. 9-11 at Quick Trip Park in Grand Prairie, Texas. The tournament hosted six teams from five states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and New Mexico. All levels of high school were represented with players ranging from the 2017 class to 2020. Here are nine of the top juniors from Texas that competed in this event.

Grayson Rodriguez, RHP/1B, Nacagdoches Central Heights
Texas A&M recruit. 6-foot-5, 220-pound frame. Big strong body with well-defined lower half and broad shoulders. Works from high-3/4 slot, pitched 89-91 mph with fastball life to his glove side, touched 93 once. His ball was heavy at the bottom of the zone. Slider was 71-73 mph with slurvey action. He threw one changeup at 82 mph in second inning.

Bo Blessie RHP, Midland Lee HS
Nebraska recruit. 6-foot-3,155-pound lean, athletic frame with long limbs and plenty of room for continued physical development. Works from a high-¾ slot with long loose arm action. His fastball was 88-90 mph in 1st with good life. He threw his slider 74-76 mph showing good feel and repeatability.

Cole Stillwell, C/1B/LHH, Rockwall Heath HS
Texas A&M Corpus Christi recruit. 5-foot-11, 190-pound frame. Behind the plate he showed a 2.2 pop time and good situational awareness back picking a runner off 3B. Offensively he has a tall, relaxed set up with a quick leg kick. Showed advanced hitting skills all weekend getting the barrel on both fastballs and offspeed pitches. He flew out to CF on the barrel in game 1. Then in game two he exploded for 4 RBIs on two doubles, both to the opposite field and both on offspeed pitches.

Ty Coleman, SS, Midland Lee HS
Texas A&M recruit. 5-foot-9, 160-pound frame. Strong body with well-defined lower 1/2, shows strength in the hands and quick twitch on defense and base paths. Defensive actions are advanced for his age, makes the play to back hand side and shows arm strength with carry. Makes the run thru play with athletic actions and ability to throw from different arm slots. Showed good speed on base paths stealing 2nd and 3rd. Offensively shows a balanced swing with level path and strength in his hands. In game 1 he had 3 hits, 2 of which were off of curveballs he hit crisply through the 6-hole.

Derrick Cherry, INF/RHP, Goose Creek HS
Houston recruit. 6-foot-1, 178-pound frame. Shows athletic fast twitch actions on defense. Threw very well from the outfield a solid transfer and very good arm speed with carry on the ball. Showed the ability to handle off speed in one at-bat where he just missed a curveball and hit a high infield fly with a 6-second hang time.

Kaden Krowka, LHP, Rockwall Heath HS
Oklahoma State recruit. 6-foot-1, 170-pound frame with strong lean build. Throws from ¾ slot. His fastball is 83-84 mph with good arm side run. He threw his slider 70-73 mph with slurvey action. Showed ability to move fastball around zone with command. Pitched on both sides of the plate and was able to locate slider at bottom of the zone.

Avery Chatman, OF, Mansfield HS
Oklahoma recruit. 5-foot-8, 160-pound strong, fast twitch body. Ran a 4.32 home-to-first time on a base hit chopper to third base. Proceeded to steal second and third base in the same inning.

Brett Brown SS, Godley HS
Texas A&M recruit. 6-foot-1, 185-pound frame. Athletic player that took good swings in all of his at-bats. His best home-to-first time was a 4.37.

Diego Muniz, SS, Rockwall HS
Oklahoma recruit. 5-foot-7, 150-pound strong frame with well defined lower half. Played most of his innings at shortstop. Offensively he was 2-for-4 in the first two games with two base hits, one of which was a crisp line drive to centerfield.

Be on the lookout for more scouting notes from Battle of the Borders
Top 2019 Grads
Top 2020 Grads

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