There was a time when Scot Green wanted to have his friend Pat Maxwell right across the diamond from him.

But this week’s Region I-4A area showdown in Henrietta wasn’t part of that plan.

He wanted Maxwell, like Green a state championship baseball coach, on his coaching team at Rider High School. It just didn’t work out that way.

Maxwell is coaching one of the best Class 4A teams in the state, the Godley Wildcats. And the Burkburnett coach isn’t the only one calling the 23-1 Wildcats the I-4A favorite.

“We have to climb Mount Everest,” Green said. “We want to play the best and see what happens.

“Their talent sticks out to me, I’ve seen them play the last two years. It doesn’t take long to realize what kind of team you’re going up against. They’ve got a ton of experience. They’ve got pitching, hitting and defense.”

And the Bulldogs (18-10) earned their way into this position as Green saw his first Burkburnett senior group set a goal and then fight like mad to get it done. They took down Sweetwater 1-0 in a Game 3 bi-district win last week.

“Our seniors talked about it all year; it had been years (2010) since we got past the first round and to have some success is really what we wanted to do. They had goals and that was one of the big goals. I was proud.”

Green has played good friends before as he did several times against Rob Johnson when the two were at Rider and Wichita Falls High School. But this week brought back some memories of what could have been.

“Our families (Greens and Maxwells) are very tight, I sang at his wedding and our friendship goes way beyond this,” Green said. “We’ve known each other a long time but never had to run into each other.

“Pat was fixing to head to Rider in 2007 when I took the job. It was going to be coach (Josh) Bobbitt, him and me but unfortunately Archer City didn’t let him out of his contract. (Or fortunately for some Archer City players) and then he won a state championship.”

Maxwell was glad to see his good friend back in the coaching game.

“We’re very good friends; he’s too good of a coach not to do something and I’m glad he got back in doing something he likes to do,” Maxwell added.

In addition to a lot of coaching changes since Maxwell left the area another thing that has changed is the addition of so many artificial turf fields, which is one reason this series begins at 4 p.m. Friday in Henrietta.

“People are going to stay out of the weather and I think that’s kind of the norm now. I think it’s a lot easer on the fielding aspect of it, you don’t have that factor of a bad hop,” Maxwell said. When he played he said Texas Tech and Lubbock Christian were the only two turf fields he recalled.

But how you win baseball games hasn’t changed. Good coaching helps a lot as both these programs now enjoy. But pitching and defense still reign supreme.

“We rely on pitching and defense and we’ve had a lot of success the last few years with that combination,” Maxwell added.

The Green-Maxwell coaching combination would have likely been a huge hit, too. Instead their influence on the great game was a little more spread out and that’s been successful, too.

Notes: Game 2 will be Friday night 30 minutes after Game 1 is concluded. If the teams split Friday then Game 3 is at noon Saturday. … Green said his district, 6-4A, “proved itself in the first week of the playoffs” almost completely taking out “a district which had had a lot of success.” The only loss was fourth-place Graham, which took 5-4A champ Wylie to the limit.

Follow TRN Sports Editor Andy Newberry on Twitter @Andy_Newberry