Highland Park High Bass Team hooks state title with 99+ pounds in catches
There aren’t any classifications in competitive high school bass fishing. Only one school in Texas can win the state championship, and the title is a mammoth catch.
Until this year, the Highland Park Bass Team had never placed in the top 10. But thanks to a mix of preparation, hard work, talented anglers, and a little luck, on June 1 at Lake Conroe the team hooked its first-ever Texas High School Bass Association state championship.
“I was not expecting to win,” said bass team president Dylan Sorrells. “I thought it was possible, but I was a little surprised.”
The Highland Park Bass Team has dominated the competition at this season’s tournaments and came into the state championship with six consecutive school wins.
Sorrells and partner Cullum Brown won the Metroplex Division Angler of the Year award for the fourth consecutive year this spring. At a March competition at Eagle Mountain Lake, the pair finished first out of 126 teams with a bag that weighed a whopping 35.80 pounds, more than the second-place school’s top three teams combined.
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But only four Highland Park boats qualified for the state tournament, fewer than the number of qualifiers from some other schools. And other teams with strong programs were closer to Lake Conroe and intimately familiar with it.
The secret to Highland Park’s success, Brown and Sorrells said, was time and practice.
“Myself and Dylan spent close to 15 days combined scanning, and fishing, and breaking down that lake,” Brown said. “That’s a huge thanks to my family who’s always supported me. Without their support, I wouldn’t have been able to put that time on the water and really help break down Lake Conroe.”
Due to the heat, fishing ended early on both days of the state tournament, which meant Highland Park had to capitalize on making catches during a shortened window of time.
Sorrells and Brown hooked a 6.83-pound lunker in the final hour of the first day of competition, a catch that Sorrells said shaped the tournament for them. Their success on day one and a late-clutch 19.41-pound bag on day two led them to a third place overall finish out of 186 boats.
Team member Myles Vinyard finished fourth overall. Vinyard was the tournament’s top solo angler, and sealed Highland Park’s victory with a catch of over eight pounds in the final minutes of the competition.
Sophomores Miller Rosamond and Lee Wagner made key contributions to Highland Park’s success, with two-day catches weighing 17.13 pounds. Also on the water for HP was team member Ryan Segulyev.
At the tournament’s end, Highland Park topped the leaderboard of more than 100 of the state’s best bass fishing schools with a two-day combined team total of 99.36 pounds, almost 9 pounds more than its closest competitor.
“It was one of those magic seasons that you certainly dream of, but don’t necessarily expect,” said parent team advisor Chris Sorrells. “We were blessed.”
