When talking about Class B baseball in the Sooner State these day, the elephant in the room is Fort Cobb-Broxton. The question is if anyone can beat the Mustangs and stop them from winning their 3rd Spring State Championship in 4 years and their 4th combined Fall and Spring titles in a row.
It is going to be a tough task for the other seven teams in the Class B State Tournament field. Let’s take a look at each one.
Ft Cobb-Broxton Mustangs, 21-6
Record vs Class B: 8-0; Record vs state tournament teams: 1-0
The Mustangs started the season stumbling out of the gates. Ft Cobb-Broxton lost three of their first four games and were 4-4 after their first eight games.
Since then, however, the Mustangs have gone 17-2 the rest of the way including wins over Granite, Dale, Marlow (2x), Elgin, and Okarche.
Star shortstop Eli Willits missed some time for the Mustangs, but ever since he’s been back he’s been lighting up the scoreboard with some monster home runs.
Calumet Chieftains, 21-4
Record vs Class B: 9-0; Record vs state tournament teams: 1-0
If their is a team in the field that may beat Ft Cobb-Broxton it could very well be Calumet. The Chieftains spent most of the year ranked #1 in the OSSAA coaches poll and the last several weeks in the SSBR Dominant Dozen. They’ve been the most consistent in Class B this season.
What could be the most telling on how good Calumet is are the losses they’ve had. They lost to a good Moore (6A) team by 2 runs, two of the top three teams in 4A, Tuttle and Elk City, and #3 (2A) Cashion on Monday in a tune up for the week.
The Chieftains wins include Roff, OCS, and Cashion.
Tupelo Tigers, 20-6
Record vs Class B: 13-0; Record vs state tournament teams: 2-0
If there is one team that gets overlooked in Class B it is the Tupelo Tigers. Out of the top 3 teams, Tupelo has played the most games against Class B competition, but it’s not like they don’t play up.
The Tigers went 7-6 against teams from A, 2A, and 3A highlighted by wins against Dale, Calera, and Amber-Pocasset (the Calera and AmPo wins came in their championship run at the Atoka Tournament). Included in their 6 losses are Dale (2A, #2), Rattan (A, #3), Silo (3A), Valliant (3A), Wister (2A, #4), and Caddo (A, #8).
Stuart Hornets, 21-10
Record vs Class B: 10-1; Record vs state tournament teams: 2-1
Stuart comes into the state tournament tied with the most losses on their record. But don’t let that fool you. The Hornets are a good team and deserve to be in the tournament. They were good enough for the coaches to rank them 4th going into Regionals.
Stuart is 10-1 against Class B competition with the loss being to fellow State team, Roff, by a 2-0 score.
The Hornets may have played only 3 games against teams higher than Class A, but who they did play was a gauntlet of some of the best small town teams. Stuart’s losses include teams like Rattan (A, #3), Caddo (A, #9), Dewar (A, #2), and Wright City (A, #4).
Their matchup against Navajo in the quarterfinals looks like the most even matchup on paper.
Navajo Indians, 29-2
Record vs Class B: 11-0; Record vs state tournament teams: 1-0
Speaking of Navajo, the Indians come into the state tournament sporting the best overall record at 29-2.
While I won’t criticize a team’s strength of schedule, Navajo’s wasn’t exactly the toughest. Maybe that has something to do with their location as there just simply aren’t many top level teams in the far southwest part of the state.
Navajo does have a win over fellow state team, Granite, and their losses are to Okarche (A, #5) and Walters (2A, #13).
The Indians did win 29 out of 31 games and there is something to say about that plus the coaches though high enough of Navajo to put them in the #5 spot before Regionals.
They are the most intriguing team coming into the tournament and I can’t wait to see what they do.
Kiowa Cowboys, 18-9
Record vs Class B: 12-3; Record vs state tournament teams: 0-3
Coming out of far eastern Oklahoma, Kiowa is a team that beat up on the teams they should and couldn’t quite get over the hump against other teams that were at their level or above.
The Cowboys lost 2 close games to Stuart and a 6-0 loss to Tupelo. They also lost an 8-5 contest to Class A’s top team, Tushka, and a late season game at (2A, #5) Preston, 11-8.
Kiowa did live up to their 6 seed designation by going 3-0 in their Regional outscoring their opponents 33-3 including a 12-2 win over #11 Leedey.
Roff Tigers, 19-10
Record vs Class B: 9-3; Record vs state tournament teams: 1-2
Talk about don’t let the record fool you. Yes, the Tigers may have the worst overall record of the state qualifiers, but they played what may be the toughest schedule.
Losses to Dewar (A, #2), Wister (2A, #4) twice, Caney (B, #8), Tupelo, Valliant (3A), Tushka (A, #1) twice, and AmPo show that the Tigers were willing to play anyone.
Roff also had their fair share of big wins this season: Sulphur (4A), Calera (2A, #6), and Sterling (A, #11) as well as going 3-0 in their Regional outscoring their opponents 28-2.
Roff made it to the state finals last year and lost a lot of key contributors from that team. For them to make it back to State is a huge accomplishment for this program.
Granite Panthers, 19-8
Record vs Class B: 10-2; Record vs state tournament teams: 0-2
Granite is the only team to make the field that didn’t host their regional. Making the 240 mile trip to Caney, the Panthers went 3-0 in the regional while beating the host school twice.
Granite’s 2 losses in Class B came against fellow state teams Ft Cobb-Broxton (7-6) and Navajo (7-1). The Panthers do have wins over Canute (A, #9) and Leedey (B, #11).
I feel like Granite is in the same boat as Navajo as their location hinders them to play tough competition on a consistent basis. They obviously come into State on a roll, so it’ll be interesting to see how they do against a Ft Cobb-Broxton team who is a much different team than when these teams played on March 15.
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