Franklin baseball team comfortable heading into first state tournament appearance (2024)

Friday’s trip to the state tournament will be the first for the Franklin baseball team.

It’s a situation that might seem daunting, especially when looking across the field at its semifinals opponent, Gunter. Not only are the fourth-ranked Tigers making their 10th trip to the tournament, but have just one blemish on their record.

Gunter (37-1) got that crack in the armor in one of its regional quarterfinals games, a 2-1 loss to Edgewood.

It wouldn’t be hard to imagine that the 10th-ranked Lions could be overwhelmed heading into the noon Class 3A semifinal at Dell Diamond.

The good news for the Lions is while they haven’t been on this stage before, plenty of the roster has state experience on the gridiron.

“We’re fortunate in Franklin that across the board in all sports, our kids have been in big moments, they’ve played in big time games and they’re very successful,” Franklin head coach Matthew Anderson said. “It bleeds over and it helps us especially in times like this. A bunch of these kids have played into three or four state championship football games, so the moment’s not going to be too big for them where it’s our first time there [but] it’s just another baseball game, just on a different field.”

For example, this fall’s trip to AT&T Stadium had plenty of diamond Lions on the roster including Blake Autrey, Noah Tart, Cort Lowry, Colby Smith, Landon LeBouf, Walker Anderson, Cooper Ezzell, Wade Stallones, Nolan Gross, Luke Johnson, AJ Phillips, Tanner Baade, Eric Gomez, Tyler LeBouf and Will Scarpinato.

With that many guys with big game experience and two of the four not on the football team are both part of the baseball team’s senior leadership and ace pitching staff, the Lions are hoping to make it a two-day stay in Round Rock.

“The goal was to get there but we’re not happy just being there,” Anderson said. “We’re working hard this week. We’re going to go out, try and compete and see what happens.”

In some respects, Gunter will feel familiar to Franklin (33-5). Both have been to multiple state title games in football recently and have even played each other.

On the diamond, both teams rely on strong starting pitching.

“I heard they got three good arms,” Anderson said. “[They’re] very athletic, competitive [as a team]. [It’s the] same thing as us, they’re always competitive in every sport.”

Gunter’s main three starters are all undefeated. Junior Jarrett Waggoner and senior Brooks Griggs-Bell are both 12-0, while freshman Jake Ivey is 8-0.

One of them will face off against one of Franklin’s three starters in Lowry, Cadyn Shaw or Josh Atomanczyk. Lowry is 7-0 and Atomanczyk is 9-0.

Shaw is 8-1, but he tossed a no-hitter against Orangefield last Saturday in the team’s 10-0 winner-take-all victory to reach state. The Tyler Junior College signee had eight walks and a hit by pitch with four strikeouts in six innings before the Lions ended the game in the bottom of the inning via run-rule.

The Lions can do more than just pitch as Lowry leads Franklin with a .465 batting average. Autrey also has an average north of .400, at .410. Gunter has two starters with averages up there, as well, as seniors Cade Dodson (.470) and Colson Wood (.420) lead the charge.

While Franklin was taking down Orangefield last week, Gunter swept defending state champ and No. 1 Boyd, 3-1 and 3-2.

Anderson knows though that Franklin needs to just do what’s worked all year if the Lions want to reach Saturday’s title game at 9 a.m. against the winner of Corpus Christi London and Brock.

“Number one, [we’ve] got to play good baseball [and] limit free bases,” Anderson said. “When you get there, everybody has good arms, so just finding way to get on the bag, get guys over and find a way to scratch runs. Pitch and play great defense, the things that got us here. Don’t try and do nothing too much, just play good baseball.”

NOTE: Franklin was not alone in Round Rock as Centerville took Dell Diamond and the 2A state tournament for the first time in program history. In its state semifinal game, the Tigers fell to top-ranked Collinsville, 10-0 in six innings on Wednesday.

FRANKLIN LIONS

No. ; Name ; Pos. ; Class

1 ; Blake Autrey ; SS ; sr.

2 ; Dylan Stallones ; LF/P ; fr.

3 ; Carter Johnson ; P/3B ; so.

4 ; Josh Atomanczyk ; C/P ; sr.

5 ; Cort Lowry ; P/2B ; sr.

6 ; Eric Gomez ; 3B ; sr.

7 ; Kade Kram ; OF ; so.

8 ; Noah Tart ; C/2B ; jr.

9 ; Cadyn Shaw ; P ; sr.

10 ; Landon LeBouf ; jr.

11 ; Wade Stallones ; OF ; jr.

12 ; Tyler LeBouf ; IF ; fr.

13 ; Colby Smith ; RF ; sr.

14 ; Nolan Gross ; P ; jr.

15 ; Walker Anderson ; SS ; so.

16 ; Tanner Baade ; IF/C ; so.

17 ; AJ Phillips ; 1B ; fr.

18 ; Luke Johnson ; P ; sr.

Will Scarpinato ; OF ; so.

Cooper Ezzell ; C/IF ; so.