The Texarkana Liberty-Eylau Leopards promoted Assistant Coach Zach Fowler to Head Baseball Coach for the 2016-17 baseball season. The move is a popular one for the school and the community as Fowler was a junior on the 2006 team that won the 3A State Championship and a senior on the 2007 team that lost in the State Championship game. Fowler was named the MVP of the 2006 State Championship game and was selected as an All-State player both years. His father, Rick Fowler, was the Liberty-Eylau Head Baseball Coach in those years.
The selection of Fowler as Head Coach was also a milestone of such for the Texas High School Baseball website and a sentimental event for myself. The THSB website grew out of the 3ABASEBALL.COM website which came on the scene for the first time in 2007.
It was that first year of our existence that Liberty-Eylau was coming off of the 2006 3A State Championship with Zach Fowler and Will Middlebrooks returning as the top 2 pitchers. Fowler is the first player out of that group of players we covered in that initial 2007 season to reach a Head Coaching position in High School Baseball.
Liberty-Eylau was the 3ABASEBALL.COM Preseason #1 team in our very first poll. They lost 2 games early to Carthage who replaced them as the #1 team for the rest of the season. Liberty-Eylau was, however, always in the Top 5 throughout the season. In that first year, 3ABASEBALL.COM put together a 3A Top 50 players list and a Top 10 3A Pitchers list. Zach Fowler made both of those lists.
Fowler, 27, played college baseball for Louisiana Tech, Texarkana College and Texas Tech. He also played professional baseball for four seasons. He returned to Liberty-Eylau in 2014 as part of the coaching staff and has been an assistant baseball coach there the last two seasons.
THSB congratulates Fowler on his selection as the Liberty-Eylau Head Baseball Coach and I take great pride in seeing a young man that I covered and wrote about as a high school player 9 years ago take the field as a Head Baseball Coach.
Tim Baugh
From 2007 Files:
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