TEMPLE, Texas — The Temple High School BBQ Pitmasters Team closed out its inaugural season in style by winning an individual category grand champion and finishing in second place overall at the National High School BBQ Association’s National Championships earlier this week.
The Pitmasters were named reserve grand champion overall to finish in second place at their first National Championship. The Sanger High School Smoke Signals won the overall title as grand champion. Temple High School won grand champion honors as the first-place finisher in the pork shoulder category. The Pitmasters also added two more top five finishes in individual categories by finishing fourth in chicken and fifth in skirt steak tacos. Teams also competed in ribs, pork chops and Dutch over dessert with a cumulative score determining overall finishes. The Pitmasters qualified for the national competition after finishing 16th in the State Championship in Burnet in May and won Reserve Champion honors in its first-ever competition to earn a spot in the state championship event. The National Championship, known as “The Slab”, was held on Monday in Hutto and awards were announced at the Kalahari Resort in Round Rock on Tuesday evening (June 20),
The Temple HS team is coached by Temple alum Joe Medrano and his wife, Allison. The five-person team is made up of seniors William Hardin, Erandy Perez and Anthony Rangel, junior Jordan Magana and sophomore Reece Medrano. Each team member is responsible for a specific food item that must be turned in on a very specific timeline during each competition. Hardin is in charge of pork chops, Perez is the Dutch oven dessert specialist, Rangel oversees the chicken, Magana is responsible for the skirt steak tacos and Reece Medrano takes the lead with the ribs. The pork shoulder competition was added for the National Championship, so the Pitmasters won first place in a category in which they were competing for the first time this year and had only been practicing for three weeks. All five of the team members had a hand in preparing the pork and also helped each other with the other items during the competition.
“There have not been many times in my life that I have been that excited and if I never win another cook-off myself, I am good with that, my heart is full,” Joe Medrano said. “For those kids to go out and do what they did, I just don’t have the words for it. It is so difficult to do what they did, and I am not sure they realize the magnitude of what they have accomplished. I just love them all and they have made me so proud and made Temple so proud.”
“It feels amazing and to be honest it feels like a dream,” Perez said. “I am so proud to be a part of this team and I never thought we would finish second in nationals. I had a good cry when I got home last night as it is really starting to sink in about what we have done. This whole experience has been amazing, and I just love this team so much.”
“It is quite exciting because we have a few people that had not cooked before,” Reece Medrano added. “Making it to state and then to nationals is something I wasn’t sure we could do so quickly. I’m not sure it has really sunk in for any of us. A couple of us have already talked to my dad about doing more cook-offs. I have learned communication skills with this team and that is something I can continue to use, along with the cooking skills I have continued to develop.”
The team held its first meeting last fall with a group of 25 interested students before that group dropped to the current five-person team before the Pitmasters competed in their first cook-off in December. The team clinched a spot in the state championship with its finish in that inaugural competition and never looked back on the way to a second-place finish in the National Championships.
“These kids are special and have accomplished so much, but we are just getting started,” Joe Medrano said. “I want to win the whole thing and my goal for next year is to win a state championship and win a national championship and we are just getting warmed up.”
“This was a great way to go out as a senior and this team has become my new family,” said Perez. “I can use this as an opportunity moving forward because I now have these skills and can always fall back on teamwork and the skills we have developed.”
Temple High School culinary arts teacher Margaret Fyffe serves as the staff sponsor for the BBQ Pitmasters this school year with Joe and Allison Medrano coaching the team at practices and competitions. The Pitmasters are competing as part of the National High School BBQ Association and also represent Temple High School Career and Technical Education.