AUSTIN, Texas — Travis Sykora started playing baseball a little later than most. But he quickly fell in love with the game and realized he might be pretty good. Sykora made the varsity team at Round Rock his sophomore year and that’s when the moment came when it clicked his future might be on the field for many years to come.

“We were playing Lake Travis in the 3rd round of the playoffs and I went out to close that game,” Sykora recalls. “At that time I was [throwing] 94-95 mph and that game I hit 97. I was like man that was close to 100, that was pretty cool."

It’s pretty cool and unique. Very few high school players can get the fastball going that high. Up to that point, Sykora had always been a shortstop and would pitch sometimes as a reliever. But throwing that hard, he decided to train more to become a starting pitcher.

“Going from a starter to a closer, there’s a lot of things I needed to work on,” Sykora says. “Especially with conditioning, being able to go a whole game.”

This mindset meant Sykora needed to take care of his body and, specifically, his arm. Young, hard-throwing pitchers are always at risk for arm injuries and he’s made it a point to do everything possible to prevent that and get the most out of his talent.

“Especially if I’m going to throw hard, I’m going to have to be more disciplined,” says Sykora. “I’m going to have a very healthy lifestyle in order to prevent getting hurt.”

To see what that lifestyle entails, we followed Sykora around on a Saturday in October. His days start a little after 8 a.m. with a morning stretch to wake the body up.

“I like to do it just to get up and get active,” says Sykora. “That way I’m not lethargic when I go to school.”

After about 20 minutes or so of stretching, Sykora heads back inside to make his own breakfast. He says he eats basically the same thing in the morning 6 days out of the week. That consists of eggs, cereal and a bagel. He then washes it down with a protein packed smoothie.

“It’s like putting gas in a car. If you were to put bad gas in a car, it wouldn’t run right,” Sykora explains. “I try to put the right nutrition in my body. That way, my body performs at the highest level.”

After breakfast, there is a little downtime before he heads up to the practice field for a throwing routine. Sykora spends much of that time doing specific warm-ups and stretches to get his body and arm loose before he does any throwing.

“All of these drills you kind of blend them up and it creates the right movement pattern in an athletic way, instead of forcing it to happen,” says Sykora. “Understanding is the most part because if you’re just doing stuff to check the boxes then your brain doesn’t know what you’re doing. If you can gain the muscle memory and learn what your body is doing, that’s when you can take it to the next level.”

On this day, Sykora is doing specific throwing exercises into a net close in front of him. He doesn’t get to throwing as hard as he can but is touching 90 mph on the gun near the end of the session. Once he’s done throwing, it’s off to grab a little lunch and then back to the house for a pretty intense workout in his garage gym.

“Biggest thing is obviously being strong, but it does two things,” Sykora describes of his workouts. “It helps me perform better but also helps prevent injuries. Adding on extra muscle and tissue around your joints is a big thing.”

He has specific workouts that he does through the help of his trainer Kevin Williams and on this afternoon he spends about an hour and a half in his gym. On the wall where he works out is a list of goals written out. Some of those goals include being a top 10 pick in the 2023 MLB Draft and the hardest throwing high school pitcher. He wants to touch 103 mph with his fastball. 

“Obviously right now I know I’m not where I need to be, so I’m motivated and I’m going to get there,” says Sykora.

Motivated is the perfect description of Sykora. He has a drive and discipline to chase his goals, which is pretty rare for a teenager.

“Every day having to get up and do those routines, day in and day out but that’s what’s protected him and kept him safe,” says Frank Sykora, Travis’ father. “Sometimes those plans that he has written out or goal he is going after, there has been a lot of failure along the way and he’s able to navigate through that and make the adjustments when he needs to.”

All of these things needed to take care of his body keep Sykora on a pretty strict schedule and take him away from some things you might imagine most high school seniors would be doing. He doesn’t see this as a sacrifice because he enjoys all the work.

“There’s nothing more motivating than when your friends are out having fun and you’re in here working out and getting better,” says Sykora.

His work has paid off already. He’s bumped up his velocity to 101 mph. He’s become one of the top baseball prospects in the country and played in the most prestigious national all-star games this summer. Sykora has committed to play baseball in college at Texas but will also likely be a top draft pick next summer and have the option to go play pro ball out of high school. All of his dreams are becoming possible thanks to the work he’s put in.

“My goal is to be the best pitcher in the MLB,” says Sykora. “I know that it’s not going to come easily. It’s going to take a lot of work and discipline, staying healthy and staying on my routines.”