Marble Falls baseball player Mattox wows for Team Texas

CAPTION: Marble Falls High School junior Crawford Mattox exits the mound for Team Texas. Courtesy photo

Marble Falls High School baseball player Crawford Mattox called playing for Team Texas in the 2026 High Plains Shootout “an amazing experience.”

The showcase was July 13-15 at David Allen Memorial Ballpark in Enid, Okla., and teammate John Alan Whittle, a senior, also played in the event.

“Not many people in the state or even in the nation get to play in this,” he said. “Just being selected out of about 450 people, I thought it was such a great blessing that I was able to be selected. And I thought there were many people that were involved in helping both of us get selected and just being able to play in this game was a wonderful experience.”

Mattox, who will be a junior this school year, has spent many weeks playing baseball, noting that he started the 2026 season in January with the Mustangs and has played it until this showcase.

Team Texas director Brad Harman pointed out that Mattox plays for Texas 12, “which is a very competitive, high level travel organization.” Harman is the first vice president of the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association.

And Mattox added that playing in this showcase featured plenty of talented players representing Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

“There was much better pitching here at the High Plains Shootout,” the Mustang said. “It was the best pitching I’ve ever faced. We faced mid-to-upper 80s the whole time, even a few arms in the 90s. We all felt like the hitting just came together naturally as a team, which can sometimes struggle in select. But we are always able to put the ball in play, and I just felt like we meshed as a team, which doesn’t always happen for Team Texas. We just meshed better than some teams do.”

As for Crawford’s individual performances, he indicated he felt good about a couple of areas.

“Definitely, being able to put the ball in play and seeing the pitching,” he said. “Since it was much better pitching, I felt like I would struggle a little bit, but I felt like I fit right in with everyone else.

“And then also the pitching aspect,” he added. “I thought I might get hit off pretty well because I’ve never faced this many good hitters in a lineup before, but I definitely held my own and had three scoreless innings and only had a few hard hits off of me.”

He pitched four innings and played for both Texas Red and pitched one game for Texas Navy.

Harman, a 1994 Marble Falls High School graduate, attended each game and sat in the dugout with the two Mustangs, emphasizing Mattox and Whittle represented the very best of where they live and their program.

“Crawford played really well at third base, and he came in to pitch, and he actually pitched one more inning than he was scheduled to because the guy in front of him got tired a little bit,” Harman said. “So Crawford got on the mound a little bit sooner, and he picked up that extra inning. And he threw well. I was really, really impressed with him on the mound and so were a lot of other people. And he swung the bat well.”

Team Texas was represented by 42 high school players, and this event is designed to allow the athletes to show what they can do on the diamond in front of numerous college representatives from different parts of the country.

As Harman reflected on the showcase, he couldn’t help but feel excited for the 2027 Marble Falls baseball team.

“You have two really, really good ball players coming back,” he said. “I don’t know a lot about the rest of the team, but those two are really, really good players. It was a true honor to have those guys and to be a Mustang myself, it was really cool just to be out there with them.”