Column: Tightknit Moorpark baseball team makes the grade on the field and in the classroom

At Moorpark High School, the baseball team’s weighted grade-point average is 4.02. The players are so smart that Coach Scott Fullerton has to watch his grammar and occasionally break up arguments involving math equations.

This season could be entitled, “Revenge of the Nerds.�

The team’s star left-handed pitcher with a 4.83 GPA, Kenny Brawner, is headed to UC San Diego to become an engineer. As a member of the campus Makers Club, he built a Ping Pong table with regular wood. In his spare time, he helped design a micro controlled doggy dish, enabling his friend to never worry that his dog might become thirsty.

Now he’s moved on to designing a water balloon launcher. It is switch activated. You press a doorbell, which will release pressurized air into another compartment, and the balloon is supposed to shoot up 300 feet.

Brawner also can solve a Rubik’s Cube in 52 seconds. Not that anyone carries around a stop watch to time him, but he’ll certainly get competition from teammates.

Infielder Matt Page spent three days during the summer in Massachusetts attending the Congress of Future Medical Leaders. He wants to become a doctor.

There’s not a day that goes by without a player discussion about computers, algorithms or SAT scores.

“They’re cerebral kids who really analyze things,� Fullerton said. “It gives them a competitive advantage. They really get the big picture. All their eggs aren’t in the sports basket. They’re playing for the love of the game.�

And, by the way, the team is pretty good with a 9-4 record. Its pitching staff is loaded with talent. Brawner is 4-0 and hasn’t given up any runs in 26 innings. The Musketeers started the season with three consecutive shutouts. The team chemistry is off the charts, since many have grown up together and like challenging each other on the field and in the classroom.

“There’s a culture,� outfielder Jimmy Friery said. “If you don’t have a 4.0, you stick out.�

Friery is at 4.33, the same as juniors Cole Kriger and Travis Weston and seniors Ryan Mitchell and Eric Schaefer. Moorpark won the Southern Section large school academic award for best team GPA at 3.73.

Before practice, Moorpark players can be seen lying on the ground, eyes closed, doing breathing and concentration exercises. Since baseball involves moments of thinking, the Musketeers can certainly use their intelligence to attain a competitive advantage.

“If we have guys who can think for ourselves on our own in the classroom, it translates real well to the baseball field,� Brawner said. “It’s all critical thinking, slowing the game down, breathing and realizing what our next move is and how to go about that plan.�

The camraderie that exists among a group of 18 players trying to succeed on and off the field is a powerful tool in a team setting.

“It’s important to have conversations with people other than about baseball and just life in general,� Brawner said. “When you’re able to have conversations with your teammates and bond, it makes it that much easier to play baseball, which is already fun. I’ve been on a lot of teams and none have had as much chemistry, where we just click.�

Now, if only Moorpark players can figure out what new contraption Brawner might design or think of when he’s sitting on the bench.

The early word is Brawner will be working on something to do with drones, so beware when looking up at Moorpark games this season.

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Twitter: @LATSondheimer