It’s a long-awaited meeting between the two schools, roughly 5 miles apart and rooted together when a large portion of Fremont students ultimately filled West Field’s halls when the school opened its doors.

The Longhorns started sports competition as a member of 4A’s Region 11 last school year but now, the Longhorns bumped up to 5A Region 5, and thus, a very obvious rivalry was born.

The schools have met almost everywhere besides the diamond, but Tuesday marks the first-ever baseball meeting between Fremont and West Field as region neighbors and geographic neighbors.

Fremont junior right-hander Hunter Maycock — who allowed a single run on four hits and five strikeouts to complete a three-game sweep of Roy High in five innings on Friday — is one upperclassman who’s waited on the series for some time. He’s played ball around the Fremont community since kindergarten, and his fellow Silverwolves are itching to compete against their former teammates.

CONNER BECKER, Standard-Examiner

“We’ve been waiting on it for 11 months,” Maycock said. “We’re just trying to have the most momentum we can.”

It’s been a fun buildup, Maycock said, as he’s watched and accounted for a few “amazing athletes” behind West Field’s rise this spring. Among them are former Silverwolves and current Longhorn seniors Grady Garrett (batting .453), Marshall Moon (.431), Brady Penland (.353) and Luke Penland (.333).

The passion for next week’s three-game series doesn’t stem from animosity, Maycock clarified. There is a baseball game to be played, after all, and that’s been the message for both sides.

“It’s kind of just all the smack talk that in high school you’re going to have,” Maycock said. “That’s all we’ve heard. It’s kind of fueled our fire, and we’re like, ‘OK, we’ll show you who’s better.’ … You just can’t make it too big a deal. You’ve gotta walk in thinking it’s another game and play to win.”

The lead-up to the series seems clear.

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“I don’t have to say anything,” West Field coach Tyler Barfuss said. “Our guys are excited to play that school out west, and the pregame speech writes itself. We didn’t get a chance to play them last year, and for it to be the inaugural time we get to play a three-game series that has region implications — I mean, I’m just trying to keep the emotions out of it.

“We like our chances against anybody at this point.”

The two teams sit atop the Region 5 standings. Fremont has won five consecutive games entering the series and the Longhorns, coming off their third straight series win by topping nonregion foe Syracuse in a two-game set, has won nine straight.

West Field is the older of the two teams, with 10 total seniors returning for Barfuss’ first season as head coach since dropping the interim title over the offseason. Two of those experienced starters — Bagby, entering next week 4-0 with a 1.99 ERA this spring, and Moon, shaking free from an elbow injury that limited his junior season — have been crucial to what the Longhorns are doing on the mound.

As West Field traveled far and wide to compete within the unconcentrated Region 11, last season spun the uncertainty of a midseason coaching change into a 17-13 finish as the second-place team in the region. They’d hang a postseason win and ended up two games shy of bracket play.

CONNER BECKER, Standard-Examiner

“We were driving an hour for all of our games, and it really became, ‘Hey, what is Longhorn baseball going to be?” Barfuss said. “At the end of last year, I told our guys two things: the first is that we will never go into a season physically unprepared. … the second thing is, we said we’ll never go into a season not prepared on the mound. Our offseason is built around developing our pitching staff.

“Are we scoring runs? Sure, and we’re going to score runs, but at the end of the day, if you look at our box scores, we’ve got it done on the mound in this last stretch of games.”

As April burns away, Fremont and West Field are each trying to avoid second place in the same region. On Friday, Fremont junior shortstop Crew Hudman delivered a two-run smack for a run-rule home win over the Royals to tie West Field in the region race at 8-1.

The Silverwolves have done it with a considerably younger roster than West Field. Junior Calvin Cooper, sophomore catcher Ashur Clark, junior outfielder Landon Palmer and sophomore infielder Bodee Hawkins each have 12 or more RBIs through 16 games this season.

Fremont features only two seniors in third baseman Kasen Pearson and outfielder Adam Mikesell. What others might see as youth, the Silverwolves, Maycock says, are connected where it counts and have the wins to prove it.

“Almost this entire team has played together since we were 5, 6 years old,” Maycock said. “We have that connection where it’s, ‘Oh, this day he’s got me, this day he’s got me, and then I got them the next day.’ … We know each other, and we know what we’re capable of.”

The series begins Tuesday at Fremont High School. First pitch is slated for 3:30 p.m. Game 2 is Wednesday at West Field, then the finale returns to Fremont on Friday, April 24.

Connect with prep sports reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net, X @ctbecker and Instagram @standardexaminersports.