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.
Today’s team: Colbert Leopards
Classification: 2A-1
2025 Spring Results: 28-9 (State Semifinalist)
2025 Fall Results: 22-14 (State Quarterfinalist)
Head Coach: Zach Crabtree
Head coaching experience: 12 HS, 14 College (2nd year at Colbert)
Top Returners
- Kaden Neill ’26(Murray State College), Kaden is as good of a pitcher as there is in the state. The past 2 seasons he is 2-0 at the state tournament with 2 CG’s, allowing only 2 runs, on 6 hits, 21 K’s.
- Brett Parsons ’26 (undecided) Brett is a 4 year starter, has been a key contributor on the mound and at the plate, we look for a great season out of him.
- Isaiah Lopez ’27 3 year starting shortstop that hits at the top of the line up, had a great fall on the mound really providing us with great depth on the mound, has the stuff to beat anyone on any day.
- Hudson Brigman ’27 3 year starting centerfielder that is a plus defender and is starting to figure it out at the plate.
- Eric Hokett ’28 2 year starter that has hit in the middle of the line up the past two seasons on back to back state semifinalist teams. Looking forward to his continued growth and development.
- Tucker Shields ’26 (SOSU -Golf) the ultimate utility guy, pitched alot of innings the past two seasons, and plays everywhere on the field except C/1B. He is the glue that keeps the Leopards together.
Top Newcomers
- Braxton Reese ’26(Southeastern Oklahoma State Univ.) Braxton is a exceptional leader, that does all the things a catcher is suppose to do and he hits in the middle of the line up.
- Trevor Jackson ’26(undecided) Trevor is our lead off hitter and second baseman, had a terrific fall hitting over 400 with 7 HR’s and over 40 RBI’s only striking out 4 times. He was a 3 year stand out at Caney HS before moving to Colbert. At the end of the fall, I felt like he was as good a hitter as there was in class 2A.
Overall Team Strengths
Our strength has to be our pitching staff and the depth of it. We have a legitimate #1 on the mound, then we have multiple guys behind him that give us a chance to win against anyone. We have 4-5 guys that we feel really good about our chances to win, every time they pitch.
Overall Team Needs to Work On
We really have to be more consistent offensively. There are times that we can really hit, and then there are days that we don’t put together very many competitive at bats. A lot of it comes from maturity, and believing in ourselves and trusting our process. I feel like this coming spring we will see a much better offense and confidence, coming off of back to back semifinal appearances the last 2 seasons.
Outlook
I feel like you would have to really look far and wide to find a HS program in the state that has made more of an improvement and jump than our program has made in the past year and a half. We feel like we are just getting started and that we have laid a really good foundation to where we will compete for state championships every season for the next 4 or 5 years. Now with that being said there are a lot of really good programs in 2A both in the fall and the spring, and its very competitive, but we think we are right there with the best teams and programs. We just have to continue to worry about ourselves and compete against the ball, not the team in the other dugout. If we can do that, then we can give ourselves a chance to be very good for the foreseeable future.
Schedule
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