Saturday, May 18, 2024
Gatesville baseball standouts Lawson Mooney and Bralen Veazey are not particularly similar.
Mooney bats and throws right-handed, while Veazey is all lefty. Mooney is a catcher. Veazey is a pitcher.
Mooney is quiet and understated on-and-off the field with an intensity and a confidence that always seems to be on a low simmer, ready to explode. Veazey is slightly more talkative, unintentionally funny, self-deprecating, and has a relaxed nature off the field that is in contrast to his dominant-on-the-mound demeanor.
Veazey is listed at 6-foot,1-inch and 185 pounds but feels 6’6, 230 when standing next to him. Mooney is generously listed at 5’10 and 160 pounds but somehow morphs into a superhero when you put a uniform on him.
Mooney is an all-state football player, all-district baseball player, and a regional track qualifier who will run at Dallas Baptist in the fall. He’s just as likely to knock your head from your shoulders in the secondary as he is to knock an RBI double to right-centerfield.
Veazey is a singularly-focused one-sport star who will attend Temple College next year and continue to do the one thing that he has done for four seasons better than almost anyone in the Gatesville program history – throw a baseball.
Though the differences abound, the pair of seniors will leave the Gatesville baseball program much better than they found it because of one remarkable similarity.
They’re winners.
Since their freshman season in 2021, Veazey and Mooney have helped lead Gatesville to their most successful stretch of baseball since a run from 2005-2010 that saw five playoff wins and two regional quarterfinal berths.
In the three full seasons that Mooney and Veazey have been healthy (more on that later), the Hornets are 50-41 with three playoff berths and two playoff wins. While a winning percentage of .549 may not seem like the glory days to some, it’s important to consider the state of the Gatesville program prior to 2020.
In the five seasons played between 2015-2019, Gatesville baseball went 24-91 with no playoff victories. In 2020, a talented group of freshman and sophomores led the Hornets to a 6-7 record before COVID ended their season. The six wins in the shortened season were as many as the Hornets had in the two previous years combined.
In 2021, that group added Mooney, Veazey, and new head coach Chase Smith, and slowly-but-surely Gatesville baseball started to win.
It would make for a more romantic re-telling of the story to say that Mooney and Veazey watched the struggles of those teams and came into the program intent on changing the program’s culture and direction. But that isn’t the reality.
“When I was in junior high and (older brother) Hayden was on varsity, I went to every single game, and Coach Truss let me help keep the stats and stuff in the dugout. But other than that, I really didn't go to that many games,” said Mooney
“I can't remember ever coming to a high school baseball game before I was in high school,” Veazey added.
The real story is that they just wanted to play ball. Though they may not have been acutely aware of Gatesville Baseball’s prior struggles both Mooney and Veazey knew that they could - and would - start winning when given the chance.
“I played with most of the kids on the team already on Swarm so I knew we could win because we won all the time,” Mooney said. “I knew we had it in us, we just had to get it started.”
“Yeah, I had no idea that we were, like, that bad before,” added Veazey. “Since Coach Smith came and then all of us came, we just got completely way better. And then, we just went from there.”
For both - at 15 years old - their first real exposure to Gatesville varsity baseball was baptism by fire as the Hornets opened that 2021 season at Lake Belton - a team that would advance to the Class 4A regional quarterfinals in their first varsity season and was led by all-state pitcher Mason Gerrard.
In the second at-bat of the game, Mooney singled of Gerrard. In his next at-bat he ripped a double to center off current Salado ace Logan Flores. Veazey’s first appearance of his varsity career was as high-leverage of a situation a freshman can face as he came on in relief with two runners on and nobody out in a 1-1 game.
The Hornets would lose that game 10-2 but the wins started to come. They beat traditional 3A powers Academy and Lorena, took down rivals Salado and Brownwood, and lost a 1-0 classic at Lampasas against current University of Texas star Ace Whitehead where Mooney and brother Hayden had the only hits of the game.
“I feel like what made that team different was that everybody was used to playing with each other, and it was more of a team. I feel like in the past maybe it wasn't, and they probably didn't care as much, but I feel like that team cared about each other more and actually cared to play and try.” Mooney said.
Veazey added that another element beyond compatibility and care was integral in the turnaround of 2021.
“The competitiveness was just, I thought, off the charts between Lawson, Banner, Mata, Hayden, Parker, and others. There's just a lot of competitiveness right there,” he said.
Veazey got his first career win in the sixth game of the year when he threw five innings of one-hit ball and struck out nine in an 11-0 win over Clifton.
He finished that season 5-3 and led the team with 50 strikeouts in 46.2 innings pitched. The Hornets finished fourth in District 6-4A that season - their first playoff berth in four seasons - and Veazey was named the district’s Newcomer Of The Year. Mooney was a First-Team All-District selection after hitting .340 for the year.
If 2021 was the year that Smith, Veazey, Mooney, and company righted the ship, then 2022 would be the year the ship was nearly sunk.
Primed and ready to compete with Stephenville for a district title, Gatesville lost four of its best nine players before the season started - including Veazey and Mooney.
Veazey learned that he wouldn’t pitch his sophomore season after it was discovered he needed elbow surgery. In a strange parallel, Mooney was also lost for the season thanks to elbow surgery of his own.
In an even stranger twist, it was Mooney who required Tommy John surgery due to overuse - an injury typically reserved for pitchers. Two weeks after surgery, he was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.
Veazey’s surgery was the result of a bike wreck that happened two years prior.
“Mine was from an eighth-grade bike wreck from over the summer. And whenever I wrecked, I had actually broken my wrist, but when they X-rayed the whole arm they found a hairline fracture in my elbow,” said Veazey. “So they just focused on my wrist, and it got healed, but over time I kept throwing and throwing, and my hairline fracture came completely disconnected. We had no idea what was happening until they actually X-rayed it. And so, they had to just take the whole bone out, put a screw in and I just had to wait until it healed up just to come back and hit.”
Veazey was able to return to action as a designated hitter by district and he hit .300 en route to making the all-district team. Mooney, on the other hand, was forced to watch as the Hornets struggled to a 9-17 mark and missed the postseason by a single game.
“It was boring. I hated sitting out,” said Mooney.
In addition to simply missing out on a season of baseball, Mooney also missed a final chance to play with Hayden, who was a senior in 2022.
“I wish I could have played with him and helped him make the playoffs his senior year. I feel like just ending your season, not making playoffs, is not a fun way to end your baseball career,” he said.
“It was just awful, because, like, it kinda felt like I had let the team down,” said Veazey, “Because I could've taken care of this if I would've known about it. It was just, it was awful. I think we could have ended up second or even challenged Stephenville for district.”
“I highly believe that,” added Mooney.
As soon as the book was closed on 2022, the pair began to count the days until opening day 2023
“I was really excited to get back, and especially because all of my teammates that I used to play with when I was younger were on varsity now, so I was used to playing with 'em, and I was ready, and I was- and I was very anxious to get started,” said Mooney.
“I felt like I had lost a lot of time, so I wanted to try to gain all that back as much as I could. And I saw that I was, like, close to a couple records to be broken, so I tried to achieve that goal, and so I thought that was pretty cool,” added Veazey.
The chance to be back on the field, leading Gatesville’s best team in a decade meant the duo could put to use another characteristic they both share - an almost insatiable desire to get better.
“They just work, work, work, and they don't accept being average,” Smith said. “That's the difference with them. And John Ibarra’s kinda the same way. They're not gonna accept not being great at everything they do.”
“They just do everything right all the time. Like, even when they don't agree with me, it's a ‘yes sir’. They're gonna do everything that we ask them to do, and they're gonna do extra stuff on their own,” added Smith. “Veazey is always throwing over there on the turf. I live close to Lawson, and, earlier in the season, he was struggling a little bit. Well, next day, I see him hitting off the tee in his backyard.”
Veazey and Mooney’s shared work ethic would contribute to their dynamic in 2023 when they were a consistent battery for the first time.
“Veazey loves to throw to Lawson. That's his catcher. They have a lot of experience together, and whenever Lawson's not back there, you can tell. Veazey’s like, ‘I'm missing part of me right now’,”said Smith.
For all of their differences, the duo also shares a similar hyper-competitive nature.
“I like his competitiveness because he'll walk a person and you can see it in his eyes. He gets mad and he starts throwing it a little harder. He can mix up his pitches really well, and the hitters are guessing every time, they don't know what's gonna come next,” said Mooney.
Veazey noted that Mooney’s competitiveness and athleticism is perhaps his biggest asset as a catcher.
“He blocks all my stuff. I don't know how many sliders and curveballs I've thrown in the dirt, and he has saved me because there will be runners on third or second and he'll prevent them from moving up or scoring. He is just a crazy competitor behind the plate,” he said.
While Smith calls the pitches for his staff, he has taken to being a bit more collaborative with Mooney.
“They have that chemistry, they have that rapport. It's hard to catch Veazey and Lawson knows exactly what his balls are gonna do,” he said. “And you can see when I'm calling pitches, he kind of looks at me sometimes like, ‘I think you should call this other one, 'cause I know what he's doing well too’.”
Fully healthy in 2023, the duo turned in a pair of seasons for the Gatesville record books.
Veazey struck out 125 batters to break an almost 40-year-old school record belonging to Johnny Clark and won 8 games (against 1 loss) which is tied for second-best in a single season in program history. His season ERA of 1.277 is also the second best single-season in school history. In the last two seasons he is 14-2 with an ERA of 1.67.
Mooney tore up the basepaths and swiped 27 bases en route to setting a single-season program record. He also had 99 at-bats in 2023 and was a part of 219 put-outs - good enough for the second best single-season in both categories. He also tripled three times (4th best in program history) and turned in a .983 fielding percentage (2nd best in program history).
While the pair posted gaudy numbers throughout the season, the team hit their stride late in district. After starting league play 0-4, they finished 4-1 including a 3-1 win over Salado where Veazey threw a complete game and struck out 12 while Mooney scored a pair of runs and stole two bases.
In the postseason, Gatesville captured their first bi-district and area titles since 2010 and advanced to the regional quarterfinals for just the third time in program history - thanks in large part to Veazey and Mooney.
In their six playoff games in 2023, Veazey hit .556 and drove in seven runs at the plate while picking up two wins on the mound. He beat Marble Falls in the bi-district opener, then came back two days later to pitch the final inning of the series-winner.
Mooney had a .440 on-base percentage in the playoffs, scored five runs, and had four stolen bases. In the playoff opener against Marble Falls he had a hit, an RBI, scored two runs, was hit by a pitch, reached on an error and scored two bases. In the regional quarterfinal loss to China Spring, he was a menace again with two hits, a hit-by-pitch, and stole a base.
The pair both said they will hold on to the memories of the 2023 playoff run - particularly the contest against China Spring. After losing a pair of district games to the Cougars, Gatesville led 3-1 through four innings before a late China Spring surge ended the Hornets season.
In addition to being a part of a great baseball game, both Veazey and Mooney say it was the environment created by a standing room only crowd of Hornet fans that will stick out to them.
“I was pretty pumped up. But it was weird because they made us do the national anthem in the dugout, so I didn't, like, get to see, like, the stands. But walking up to the plate and actually looking at the stands and seeing it was full, I mean, it got me. I was a little nervous, but it got me pumped up,” said Veazey.
Their senior seasons thus featured even more forward progress. The Hornets turned in an 18-11-1 regular season mark and finished tied for second place in district 23-4A - their best district finish since 2010.
Mooney heads into the postseason hitting .355 for the year which is the best single season mark of his career. Though he battled some injuries early in the season, Mooney was still able to pass Steve Adcock and become the program’s all-time leading base stealer with 54. He currently ranks in the top ten in six career statistical categories and five single-season categories.
Veazey is 6-1 in 2024 with an ERA of 1.277 which is second only to Thomas Weber’s .095 mark for the best season in program history. His career ERA of 2.02 is currently the best in program history.
Veazey needs five strikeouts to pass Craig Loerwald and set the all-time mark of 257 and needs two wins to tie the career-record of 21 set by Darwin Lucero. He has also homered three times this season which ties him for the 11th best season in program history.
The Hornets opened their bi-district playoff series at Lago Vista on May 2 looking to replicate their 2023 success and perhaps advance to the regional semi-finals for the first time in school history.
“We're really confident in ourselves in this team, and I think that's what sets us apart. So, I feel like if we, as long as we have the confidence to win, we're gonna keep going and we're gonna keep winning,” said Mooney.
Smith, a great Gatesville player in his own right, says there is no doubt that Mooney and Veazey are amongst the best in program history.
“They're two of the best no doubt, and it's just a real blessing to be able to get to coach those guys and have those guys. You don't have to worry about the catcher and you don't have to worry about the pitcher,” said Smith. “They're just solid dudes and they're gonna be missed tremendously.”
Neither Mooney or Veazey seem to dwell that much on how they want to be remembered.
“I was never really a vocal person and I'm not really a vocal leader. I was more of a leader by example, and I just, I hope that's what people remember me as is just a leader by example,” said Veazey.
When Mooney considers his legacy, only one word comes to mind.
“I just want them to say that I was a good competitor. That I was always trying to compete and help the team out in any way I could,” he said.
While playoff success is expected, the reality also exists that Gatesville is two losses away from their season ending. Meaning that Gatesville is two losses away from losing two of the best to put on the uniform.
“I think it's crazy how fast it's gone. I mean, playing baseball your whole life, you don't think it's going end, but it's actually right there,” said Mooney.
Veazey also thinks about how quickly his four years have passed.
“I feel like it's gone by really fast. Like, I remember as a freshman, I was like ‘oh man, I've still got three years of this’. Couldn't even play in my sophomore year, so that kind of, like, breezed on through. And then, I felt like my junior year because we did so good, that it’s just all gone by fast,” he said.
As Veazey looks ahead to the inevitable end of his time in Gatesville, he could be speaking for anyone who has been fortunate enough to watch him, Mooney, and their fellow seniors these last four seasons.
“To be honest, I don't really want to graduate and I really don't want it to end. I wish our senior year of baseball could last forever,” he said.
