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: McAlester Buffaloes

Classification: 5A

2025 Results: 17-19

Head Coach: Justin Mullins

Head coaching experience: 5 years (all at McAlester)

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Top Returners

• Denver Durant – Junior Starting SS and 1 of our top arms. Throws right hits left will hit in the middle of our lineup. Is upper 80’s on the mound. In talks with a lot of JUCOs Cowley, Connors, Eastern, Rose State, Murray State.
• Jaxon McKinney – Sophomore starting catchers. Started every game behind the plate and hit leadoff for us last year as a freshman. Hit over .400 last year as a freshman and set a program record as catcher throwing out 22 runners.
• Brody Parker – Sophomore 3rd baseman and one of our district arms. Came on last year as a freshman and was one of our best arms. Going to be a mid 80’s guy for us and will be a district arm for us.
• Grant Mullins – Sophomore starting middle infielder for us and will be one of our top arms out of the bullpen and could start also. Had several high pressure innings for us last year in some big time ballgames. Smart player that knows how to play the game.
• Cole Leybas – Senior 1st baseman that was one of our top hitters last year. Hit .390 last year for us. Lunch pale kid. Doesn’t say much but just puts his head down and works.
• Wilson Allford – Senior pitcher and outfielder. One of hardest workers on the team looking for big things from him this year.
• Gavin Brumley – Senior outfielder and pitcher. Came on the 2nd half of the season last year. Will be a utility guy for us this year and play some infield and outfield.

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Top Newcomers

• Blayde Smith – Sophomore outfielder that played JV for us last year but looking for him to earn a spot in outfield and hit at the top of our lineup for our varsity.

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Overall Team Strengths

I would say pitching will be our strength since we have about 90% of our innings coming back this year.

Overall Team Needs to Work On

We will be young in spots and have to grow up quick.

Outlook

Continue to grow and get better and by end of the season be in the running for a district championship and host a regional. Giving us a chance to be playing our best ball in May and playing our best baseball in regionals and state tournament.

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Schedule

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