farragutpress

Almost 52 diamond weeks — but not a grind for state champ father, son

Coach Buck, Lukas love year-round baseball calendar; coaching fruits at MLB level

June 14, 2023 by Alan Sloan

To retain a razor-sharp championship edge at the high school level, it’s obviously much more than pulling the baseball equipment out in late February and packing it up in late May.

For the Buckners, baseball essentially is a 52-week happening — head coach Matt Buckner having led Farragut High School baseball to six state title in his first 13 full seasons as Admirals skipper (a two-time American Baseball Coaches Association Regional Coach of the Year) and star junior shortstop Lukas Buckner, who, as a 2022 Tennessee Baseball Coaches Association Player of the Year, has helped his father win those last crowns back-to-back in 2022 and 2023.

In addition to the grind of an FHS season, playing in competitive leagues and tournaments throughout the Southeast, running an annual youth camp in early June and off-season conditioning adds up during a 365-day year.

Baseball, in fact, “is our life — basically it’s all we do,” coach Buckner said.

“It’s the whole year,” Lukas said about baseball in his life. “With weight training in the off-season, we really don’t take any time off.”

“Very few people get to see the amount of effort that goes into it,” coach Buckner said.

However, as opposed to burnout, “I think it’s fun,” Lukas said about his constant baseball life. “I mean, if I didn’t want to do it I wouldn’t do it. And it’s not just me; we have guys here (at FHS) all the time.

“It’s a lot more fun where everybody loves it, too,” the younger Buckner added. “... Everyone wants to be here and everyone wants to get better. I think we’ve created a really hard-working culture.”

“I feel like our guys are very invested,” coach Buckner said about his team, featuring an especially talented rising senior class that includes Lukas. “We work hard at it throughout the year. .. These kids, they put everything into it their whole lives.

“We have a culture here that’s built on hard work,” he added. “... It’s an everyday deal; that’s what this game requires now. It’s a lot.

“If you don’t love it, you get eaten up here.”

About in the pressures of playing at Farragut. “I definitely felt it my freshman year a little bit — less in games, but more in intersquads and scrimmages having to prove myself,” said Lukas, who is committed to Central Florida but is looking at other schools. “But during that time I played really well, just throughout the whole (situation), and I feel like I earned everyone’s trust.

“I don’t care about what other teams think about me, but I wanted my guys to know that I deserved to be there and deserved to be playing,” he added.

As for other key ingredients, “Obviously, we have talent, too, that’s a big part of it, ... and we play a really hard schedule; it’s increased in the last two or three years,” coach Buckner said. “We’ve played a lot of nationally ranked teams.”

In fact, “I think we faced 17 Division I arms last year,” the coach said.

Six positions starters and many of the team’s 2023 postseason top pitchers belong to the FHS Class of 2024.

“This particular group has been together a long time,” coach Buckner said.

Going back even before high school, “We knew this group was going to be good — they were really, really good when they were young,” he added.

As for Lukas, “I knew whenhe was 10, 12 years old he was probably going to be really good,” the father said. “... I’m very proud about what he’s been able to do on the field. He’s worked really hard.

“It wasn’t given to him.”

Reflecting on his most recent championship in Division I-4A, “We played about as well as you could for the last month,” the coach said. “We had a little hiccup in the District (4-4A), but other than that we were dominant.”

About possibly ranking his Class of 2024 at the top of the best baseball classes in program history, coach Buckner was quick to point out the Class of 2011 won state titles all four years as Admirals.

“We’ve had so many good teams at Farragut it’s hard to say that,” he added about the Class of 2024.

Moreover, being an assistant coach in the early 2000s under another Tennessee high school coaching legend, former Ads skipper Tommy Pharr, “For me the ’03 was probably one of the best (high school) teams I’ve seen,” coach Buckner said. “That was a pretty special group.”

As for Pharr’s influence on coach Buckner’s success, “First of all, he was my high school coach,” the current Ads skipper said about playing under Pharr as a catcher at Class A Monterey High School in Middle Tennessee in the mid-1990s.

“He’s meant everything to me from a mentor standpoint,” coach Buckner added, with Pharr having won nine state titles — five at Farragut and four at Christian Academy of Knoxville since first coming to FHS in 1998. “First of all, he’s just a great dude and a great man and a brilliant baseball mind. I was fortunate to cut my teeth under Tommy Pharr.”

Perhaps three Admirals stand out when viewing things from a Major League Baseball perspective.

Nicky Delmonico (star outfielder, Class of 2011) went on to enjoy some brief success with the Chicago White Sox before injuries cut his MLB career short.

“In high school I’ve never seen anyone dominate the way Nicky did,” the coach said.

Nick Senzel (Class of 2013) was the No. 2 overall pick in the 2016 MLB Draft, chosen by the Cincinnati Reds.

Though injuries also have hampered Senzel, also an ex-Tennessee Vols star player, he earned National League Player of the Week honors earlier this season “following a tremendous week of action to round out the month of April,” a UT Sports Information press release stated.

Most recently, Ben Joyce (FHS Class of 2018) has taken his college-record 105.5 mph fastball to MLB, having recently been called up by the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.