The calendar has turned to the a new year and that means the OSSAA high school baseball season will be here soon. Classes A1, A2, and B officially get started February 23 while the rest of the classes begin March 2.

Up until that the beginning of the season, SSBR will be providing previews of as many teams as we can. Recently, SSBR sent out questionnaires to the high school coaches across the state of Oklahoma asking for their top returning players, top newcomers, overall strengths/weaknesses, and their overall assessment where their respective programs are coming into the 2026 season.

What you have below are the responses to those questions in the words of the coaches themselves.

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Today’s team: Ponca City Wildcats

Classification: 6A

2025 Results: 13-23

Head Coach: Grant Middlebrooks

Head coaching experience: 4 years (all at Ponca City)

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Top Returners

• Kalon Covey: Sr. SS/RHP committed: NOC Enid;3 Year Starter; Jr. Stats: Avg.: .400 SB:22
• Chance Hafen: Sr. C committed: North Dakota State College of Science; 2 year starter
• Lance Arbona: Sr. RHP/3B 4 Year starter
• Isaiah Branstetter: Sr. LHP/1B 4 Year Starter
• Logan Ross: Sr. OF 3year Starter
• Ace McCloud: Sr. RHP/OF 2 Year Starter

Top Newcomers

• Joey Smith, RHP

Overall Team Strengths

We return all of our starters, so I would say our experience will be a strength. Our other strength is defense, we pick it pretty well.

Overall Team Needs to Work On

We need to get better swinging the bat, and we also need to get better depth on the mound. 1-4 we pitch it pretty well, need some young guys to step up.

Outlook

I think that this year could be a big year for our program. We return all of our starters and some depth pieces that are coming through the younger grades. A realistic approach would be us being around that .500 mark. But I truly believe that we will be able to sneak up on some people, and have a chance to do something really cool here.

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Schedule

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