When Luke Schreyer, JoJo Kubo and Dasan Hill — the 69th overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft — graduated, Grapevine coach Jimmy Webster wasn’t sure how he’d replace three arms with double-digit wins who led them to a 5A state title in 2024.
But with a freshman phenom to pair with two title-tested returners, Webster had a hunch the rotation could be good.
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His hunch proved correct. Grapevine is one of five Dallas-area baseball teams still standing in the state semifinals. Each has at least two reliable arms, and most can lean on a full trio of trusted starters. In a playoff format built mostly on best-of-3 series, teams without a dependable Game 3 pitcher often find themselves in trouble.
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Webster said it’s hard to advance deep into the playoffs without three pitchers.
“You can do it if you’re scoring 13 or 14 runs a game, but when you start advancing in the playoffs in Texas, you’re gonna run into arms,” Webster said. “And those 12, 13, 14 runs you may be getting, they’re gonna turn into ones and twos and threes, so you better have quality arms in your program.”
Grapevine’s playoff rotation has leaned on three starters: Benjamin Chen, Luke Esquivel and Lale Esquivel.
Grapevine starting pitcher Benjamin Chen makes a third inning pitch against Argyle during a District 3-5A High School baseball game played on Friday, March 21, 2025 at Grapevine High School in Grapevine.
Luke, the younger of the Esquivel brothers, is the team’s ace. The LSU pledge and a former Team USA 15U pitcher was the arm Webster felt most confident in heading into the season.
He owns a 10-1 record with 112 strikeouts, while his older brother, Lale, holds a 7-1 mark with 47 strikeouts. A Miami pledge, Lale hasn’t lost a start this postseason. After Grapevine dropped Game 1 against Joshua, he kept the team alive with a complete-game shutout in Game 2.
Chen has only started once this postseason — Grapevine’s only Game 3 — but delivered when called upon, allowing one earned run and striking out three in 4 ⅔ innings.
“Ben’s kind of a cerebral guy, so he doesn’t look like a mad-dog competitor, but I wouldn’t turn my back on him,” Webster said. “He’s extremely competitive when he has the ball, so we have complete trust in him.”
Prosper’s playoff run mirrors Grapevine’s, using a three-man rotation built entirely on arms that didn’t start on varsity a year ago.
Hunter Vincent served as a reliever a year ago but earned the No. 1 spot in the rotation through perseverance. He’s taken on the Game 3 role in the playoffs — a strategic move to have one of the team’s top arms available to close out the series.
“I think I’ve done really good,” Vincent said. “I’ve helped my team out a lot this playoffs.”
Vincent holds an 8-2 record with a team-high 109 strikeouts.
He’s joined in the rotation by Hank Rizzo and Landon Walker, both of whom have at least seven wins. Rizzo has 65 strikeouts on the season, while Walker has recorded 56.
“You gotta have that third guy because just like we’ve seen in the last two series that we played, Game 3 was a deciding game,” Prosper coach Scott Holder said.
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Lovejoy leans on Logan Corley and Tyler Scarborough, both of whom have at least six wins and 79 strikeouts this season. But in the team’s only Game 3 of the postseason, it turned to Asher Lacy, who struck out two and allowed four hits without giving up a run in the regional semifinals against Midlothian Heritage.
Lovejoy High School pitcher Tyler Scarborough (11) delivers a pitch in the second inning as Lovejoy High School hosts Melissa High School in a baseball game played at Lovejoy High School in Lucas on Friday, April 11, 2025. (Stewart F. House / Special Contributor)
Scarborough had eight strikeouts and gave up four hits in Game 2 against Midlothian Heritage.
Corley, a TCU pledge, has been the Game 1 starter throughout the playoffs. He delivered a standout performance in the area round against The Colony, striking out 11 and allowing just two hits over 10 scoreless innings.
“Having those two has been big for us,” Lovejoy coach Ryan Gros said.
McKinney North hasn’t played a decisive Game 3 this postseason, but has used multiple pitchers to start games: Brooks Nelson, Aiden Sayman and Preston Quinterro.
Unlike McKinney North, Flower Mound Marcus has had to play in a bevy of Game 3s in the playoffs, which has made them have to dig deep in the pitching rotation. In the regional finals, Marcus coach Jeff Sherman used 10 pitchers.
He assigns them based on the matchup, but Emerson McKnight has been a mainstay as the pitcher who opens a series.
Flower Mound Marcus High School pitcher Emerson McKnight (17) delivers a pitch in the first inning as Southlake Carroll High School played Flower Mound Marcus High School in a Class 6A, Division II, Region I final baseball game at Dallas Baptist University in Dallas on Thursday, May 22, 2025. (Stewart F. House / Special Contributor)
“You gotta have two quality pitchers for sure to get this deep,” Sherman said. “And when I say the word quality, it’s like they throw strikes and then they throw multiple pitches for strikes.”
McKnight is 11-1 on the mound with 110 strikeouts, with only 30 walks and eight earned runs given up over 77 innings.
He tossed a three-hit shutout as Marcus blanked Carroll 5-0 in the regional finals. McKnight had nine strikeouts while allowing three walks and hitting three batters in the game.
“Our job as coaches is to develop pitching first,” Sherman said. “You’re not gonna have a football team that’s going to be like, ‘Hey man, we have to score all these points and we’re gonna negate defense.’ If that happens, they will not win.”
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