Marble Falls baseball’s offseason leads to success

CAPTION: Head coach Tyler Porter (left), junior pitcher John Alan Whittle, and senior Canon Cochran. Whittle and Cochran played multiple positions throughout the season. Photo by Martelle Luedecke/Luedecke Photography

Winning 24 games in a season doesn’t come by accident. It takes a lot of work in different places typically not visible to fans.

That’s in part what made the ending for the Marble Falls High School baseball team so difficult when Gatesville came back to win the second and third games of the best-of-three bi-district series of the Class 4A Division I playoffs 8-2 and 7-3 April 30. Marble Falls won game one 5-1 April 29.

Before that, the Mustangs (24-7, 11-3 District 24-4A runners-up) hadn’t lost a contest since the 2-1 setback at home against Salado April 1. They had been riding an eight-game winning streak.

A couple of days after the season ended, head coach Tyler Porter was still reviewing and reflecting on the series with the aim of better helping his players take the next step.

“Sometimes I still think in Marble Falls, we make too big a deal out of making the playoffs, like, that’s an accomplishment and I don’t really feel like it is, so I think sometimes we make that such a big deal,” he said. “I don’t mean something bad. … Getting to the second round, the third round, the fourth round – that’s exciting. Sometimes I feel like maybe we feel like we’ve checked a box, but making the playoffs is just a very small box for me. Honestly it goes back to coaching, too. Maybe some of it was missed because we didn’t coach well enough, some situations we hadn’t had to be in much this year, and when you’re in the playoffs, you don’t quite execute, so maybe we need to find a better way to put these kids in these situations in different moments where they’re ready for it. Typically after a year like this, when you feel like you lost too early, I get pretty self-reflective and just figuring it out.”

Few teams prepared better for the season than these Mustangs. They met for lifting sessions several times a week, eat lunch together daily, and do other activities together – all the events that lead to building friendships away from the diamond that help players fight for each other.

The Mustangs showed that fight when they began the season in a best-of-three series at Stephenville Feb. 20-21. Marble Falls won the first contest 11-2 and the Yellowjackets took game two 7-0. But the third game is what caught the attention of fans. The Mustangs prevailed 12-7.

Then they returned for the home opener at Scearce Field Feb. 24 where they crushed Cameron Yoe 11-1.

Even then it was clear that senior Canon Cochran, junior John Alan Whittle and sophomore Crawford Matttox were the team’s “dudes,” the players who seemed to feel the most comfortable producing in the high-pressure situations.

Whittle said the Mustangs took a long hard look at themselves in the offseason and realized they had to change some routines if they wanted better results in 2026.

“After last season we knew we were a young team, a smaller team and over the summer and the fall, we put a big emphasis on the weight room,” he said. “A lot of us worked out together. And then we’re working hard in the mornings. We knew that was something that we needed to focus on – getting bigger, faster, stronger.”

They also had confidence in their teammates to come through, too.

The results were obvious as batters hit the ball harder and farther. Pitchers were throwing with velocity and hitting the strike zone efficiently. And defenders were faster to the ball and quicker to make accurate throws to bases for outs.

“I think we’re complete from one to nine,” Whittle said following the 3-0 win at Burnet March 13. “Everyone’s scrappy, everyone can hit for extra bases when they need to, and we find ways to get score. I think that’s the difference from this year than last year. Last year we had pretty good pitching, pretty good defense, but the hitting piece was shaky. This year everyone is finding a way to get on.”

That’s why the ending, especially one that came much earlier than the Mustangs projected, has been difficult.

Porter emphasized that making the playoffs isn’t a guarantee and that it takes work throughout several months, way before the season begins, to qualify. And at the same time, the time has come for the program to evolve where the Mustangs go beyond simply qualifying for the postseason.

“We have to move past that as a group where I don’t want our kids to feel like the complacency,” he said. “That’s what prevents programs from becoming great is complacency. I want to treat the playoff season like the regular season and everything else before May are just kind of warm-up games to get ready for the playoffs. I’m not trying to sound overly negative. We need to go three rounds, four round deep to have a good season. That’s where we need to get and where this program should be soon.”

CAPTION: Sophomore Crawford Mattox also played various positions for the Mustangs, going where he was needed.