MOORE POWER
Hughes Springs’ ace named Player of Year
HUGHES SPRINGS, Texas—The awards keep piling up for Dylan Moore, the Texarkana Gazette’s 2014 All-Area baseball player of the year, but it seems safe to say we haven’t seen anything yet.
Gifted kids are usually gifted at many things, and Moore is
the perfect example. The day he decides to stop starring on the diamond will probably come exactly one day before he starts dazzling in the courtroom.
Voted first-team all state by the coaches, and tied for 10th nationally for consecutive high school pitching wins, Moore is also an academic all-stater and was class valedictorian. A long-held dream of becoming a college pitcher will be realized this fall at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette this fall, but 90 percent of his college money will come from academic scholarships.
“He’s the smartest kid I ever coached,” Kent Carpenter, his high school coach said. “He got a 30 on his ACT (21 is the median) and decided to retake it. The next time he got a 32. Who retakes a 30?
“He qualified to get into every school that offered him —Air Force Academy, Brown, Columbia, Baylor.”
That story perfectly describes Tina and Clint Moore’s son: Preparation, competitiveness, perseverance, resilience, focus.
“When I was five I told my parents I wanted to be a college baseball pitcher,” Moore said. “I always played to play college baseball, and that’s been my driving focus since my freshman year.”
His last two seasons virtually assured that would happen. He went 46-3 in his high school career, 32-1 in his last two seasons for a squad that went 61-7, reaching the state finals in 2013 and regional finals in 2014.
This year, Moore went 15-1, with 1.10 ERA, 138 strikeouts, and 18 walks in 89.1 innings. Opponents batted .153 against him. He was also lethal at the plate, hitting .462, with 11 doubles, a home run and 21 RBI.
On the mound, Moore is a pitcher, not just a thrower. To be sure, his fastball comes in in the mid- to high-80s, which is more than respectable. More importantly, his pitches have movement and he controls both sides of the plate.
“He’ll run a fastball in threefour inches, and come right back with a slider that breaks away six to eight inches,” Carpenter said.
Moore has had the advantage of a pitching tutor for years, and he said Dennis Driskell’s words rang true.
“He always told me that location and movement are the most important things in pitching. Velocity will come,” Moore said.
Though Moore has made it look easy the past few years, few realize the steep hill he climbed to high school stardom, Carpenter said. As a freshman, he looked like anything but an elite athlete. That he does now is a credit to consistent hard work.
“I had quite a bit of body fat,” Moore sheepishly acknowledges.
Four years ago, his 40-yard dash time was around 6.3 seconds, Carpenter said. Now it’s closer to 4.6.
“I saw the thousands of pounds he pressed in the weight room, all the running,” the coach said. “That translates to the mound.”
While crafting a body that could compete at the highest level, Moore was not neglecting his mind. He plans to seek an undergraduate degree in international business or political science, and then to pursue a law degree. After having the opportunity to go to court with a friend’s father, a lawyer, Moore said he was captivated by the challenge of preparing and presenting a case, as well as by the opportunity to help people through difficult situations.
But first, he gets to compete with a baseball team that stayed near the top of the polls and hosted a super regional this year.
“Dylan may not be the big pitcher early,” Carpenter said, “but he will in time. He’s going to work so hard, he’s going to work his way into being a great collegiate player.”