Broken Arrow Baseball Among Nation's Best

By Kyle Dierking, NewsOn6.com

BROKEN ARROW, OK -- Its team comes in different shapes and sizes.

"We have some guys that can throw hard, we have guys that have some nasty stuff and we've got really fast guys and we've got big guys," said Broken Arrow senior right fielder Jacob Parsons. "We just have a lot of everything."

And a lot of youth. Broken Arrow baseball has an abundance of underclassmen in its lineup. There are as many as four sophomores, two juniors and a freshman plugged in to the batting order.

"The newness of guys playing at this level and I think that is what's been the most fun," said Broken Arrow baseball coach Shannon Dobson. "Just experimenting new guys and just giving us a chance to go out and win every day."

Broken Arrow only has six seniors on this year's team, but the senior scarcity hasn't been a bad thing.

"With the youth we have, we're going to take a different approach for getting focused for every game," said senior pitcher Sam Moses. "We're coming out for every game ready to compete instead of taking games for granted."

In fact, the senior minority has meant major success. The Tigers are ranked 15th in the nation by USA Today. They've also taken down some of the state's best; including last year's 6A winner Owasso as well as defending 5A champion Bixby.

"Our main goal is number one in state," Pasons said. "Getting that golden ball is all we're really worried about."

"We don't pay attention to rankings - the only thing we care about is regional pairings," Moses said. "That ranking is a privilege, something we work for, and it's not something we're guaranteed."

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