Farragut High School senior Cole Draper is the 5Star Preps 2025 Pitcher of the Year. Draper led Farragut to a fourth consecutive Class 4A state championship.
BY NOAH TAYLOR
Cole Draper couldn’t explain it. He still can’t.
The Farragut senior right-handed pitcher, playing on a familiar stage, was suddenly battling nerves in the first couple of innings of the Class 4A State Championship Game at Mack Hawks Field in Murfreesboro on May 25.
Draper had been here before. It was his third-straight start in a state title game for the prep baseball superpower, and he was instrumental in getting the Admirals back there. Even as he struggled with rare control issues against Clarksville batters and faced an early deficit, there was no doubt he was going to finish the game.
“I really have no reason for it,” Draper said. “My stuff was kind of wild there at the beginning … Once we got the lead back, I knew it was my game. My friend Benny Miller was in the bullpen. I told him, ‘I love you, man. But this is my game. I’m going to go out there and finish this out and we’re going to win this game.’”
It was vintage Draper.
In the final act of his high school career, he went the distance, shutting out Clarksville after that shaky start and leading Farragut to a convincing 11-3 triumph and ending what was billed as a rebuilding year for the program in the usual way: state champions.
It was an appropriate end for Draper, too. All three of his title game starts — including as a sophomore in 2023 — were complete games, the last securing the Admirals their fourth consecutive title and 14th championship all-time.
Draper, who will play at Wofford next season, is the 5Star Preps Pitcher of the Year for the second-straight year after going 9-0 and finishing with a 1.78 ERA and a performance that summed up a career.
“I don’t think you can speak enough about what he means to this program, and what he’s done,” Farragut head coach Garrett Copeland said.
After those two championships in 2023 and 2024, the Admirals entered their 2025 campaign with limited outside expectations. They returned Draper, but were under the leadership of a new head coach in Copeland and had voids to fill after sending a plethora of talent on to the next level.
Inside the Farragut clubhouse, though, nothing about expectations had changed. And the talk elsewhere about the Admirals not winning state again was added motivation.
“There were some people who didn’t think we could do it,” Draper said. “The coaches did a great job of keeping it in our mind that we’re all there just having fun, having a good time. There wasn’t too much stress put on us.”
Those kinds of conversations might have been lost on Draper, anyway. He knew the goal. He had accomplished it twice already.
Copeland knew that, too.
“I don’t think there had to be too much discussion on his personal goals,” Copeland said. “He’s a pretty driven and motivated kid. He’s somebody that works really hard, does what he needs to do to be successful. He’s an intense competitor.
“He’s somebody that’s pretty happy-go-lucky day-to-day. But once the lights turn on, he flips a switch. He’s an intense competitor.”
Farragut needed that version of Draper.
In a season where the bullpen wasn’t as deep as it had been in the previous years, Draper was called on more than he had been before. In the last month of the season, he pitched more than 31 innings.
In back-to-back do-or-die District 4-4A Tournament games against Bearden and Hardin Valley, Draper combined for eight innings and allowed just two hits in a single day to punch the Admirals’ ticket to the tournament final.
Draper had been called on in similar moments since he was sophomore. Experience helped prepare him to do it again as a senior. So did just being himself when it mattered most.
“Some of that stuff just comes with maturity and experience,” Copeland said. “I don’t know that it’s anything that the coaches helped to develop. I think it’s something that he has within him. He wants to be the best he can.
“He puts the work in, he puts the time in. The success has followed.”