Buck Ringgold: With flurry of recent upsets, get ready for an unpredictable postseason for Oklahoma high school baseball

Oklahoma prep baseball is heating up.

By Buck Ringgold

I've long considered baseball one of my favorite sports, to watch and to cover.

One of the things I love most about baseball is its unpredictability. No two games are really ever the same.

On any given day, one team could get a minimal amount of hits or even get no-hit altogether. The next day, that same team can come out and score a massive amount of runs and pound out a bunch of hits.

True, you have your elite teams at every level that somehow during the course of one season will end up winning the championship or come pretty darn close to it. But sometimes, the underdog will rise up and find a way to take down the favorite.

In the past couple of weeks alone in Oklahoma high school baseball, we've seen some prime examples of that. And it makes me think that we could be in for one wild postseason ride when the playoffs begin to transpire later on in the month.

For instance, currently there are no undefeated teams in Class 6A.

There are some very good teams, including some of the usual suspects, and there's really no clear-cut favorite. But there are no undefeated teams.

On the last weekend of March, one team that was undefeated, Jenks, lost to another undefeated team, Edmond Deer Creek, in the title game of the tournament the Trojans jointly host with Broken Arrow. And the score wasn't close, 9-1.

Deer Creek followed that win up with a district series sweep against Northwest Classen and a win against a good 3A team in Oklahoma Christian School. But on March 30, the Antlers lost, 9-8, in extra innings to city rival Edmond North. The next day, Deer Creek lost to Bixby in the opener of the Enid Festival.

Speaking of the Spartans, they started off the season 15-0. That 15th win came on March 28, when they scored 15 runs in the opening game of a district series with Tahlequah. But the following day, the Tigers turned the tables, holding the Spartans to two runs as Tahlequah handed Bixby its first loss, 4-2.

Owasso started out 10-0 before a loss during a spring break trip to Florida. Still, the Rams ended up winning six of seven games on that Florida swing before returning to Oklahoma soil and winning three straight. But on Saturday, they dropped a pair of games to a couple of Missouri schools.

Likewise, there are no undefeated teams in Class 5A. Yet, there are some very compelling district races prior to Monday's games.

For instance, in 5A-3, Shawnee leads with a 7-0 record, followed by Bishop Kelley, Sapulpa and McAlester, each standing at 6-0. Then over in 5A-4, Claremore leads with a 6-0 mark, but three other teams are in hot pursuit of the Zebras, with Collinsville, Grove and Coweta each at 4-0.

In 4A, Tuttle started off 15-0 before falling, 5-4, to Harrah on March 28. The Tigers paid the Panthers back the next day with an 8-1 win and then posted a 12-2 win on March 31 against a Chickasha team that had come in at 15-2.

Verdigris, another 4A school, also started its season 15-0 and appeared to be primed to take over the No. 1 spot in the SBLive Oklahoma Top 25 rankings. But in the semifinals of the Fort Gibson/Hilldale Shootout on Friday, the Cardinals were stunned by Class 2A Oktaha and then dropped the third-place game to Fort Gibson.

Among the 3A schools, Victory Christian had really been rolling, as the Conquerors won 18 of their first 19 ballgames. But on Friday, in their own tournament, they dropped a 5-4 decision in extra innings to 5A Glenpool, a team that had come in having won just four games up to that point.

That Victory Christian tournament, incidentally, was won by 4A Newcastle, which had started the season 4-3 before reeling off seven straight wins.

The only undefeated team among those from 6A to 2A is the top-ranked team in 2A, Silo, which stands at 11-0. The Rebels have won back-to-back tournaments on consecutive weekends, including the Atoka Wood Bat Tournament, with Silo winning all three games by an aggregate total of 28-0.

But the No. 2 ranked team in 2A, Oktaha, has momentum after winning the Fort Gibson/Hilldale Shootout, beating three 4A teams including No. 1 Verdigris and then rolling past Class A No. 3 Red Oak in the title game, 12-2. And who knows, there could be a few other 2A teams that have a say in which one ends up hoisting the gold ball come May.

Meanwhile, Canute was the top-ranked team in Class A, having won its first 11 ballgames. But on Saturday in the Kingfisher Tournament, Heritage Hall upended the Trojans, 12-3. We'll see if the Trojans will still be ranked atop Class A when the new set of rankings come out on Monday.

There is one undefeated team in Class A: Pioneer-Pleasant Vale, which stands at 21-0 and has scored at least 10 runs in 10 of its last 11 games. Could the Mustangs get that top spot when the new set of rankings are released this week?

For that matter, who will be the new No. 1 ranked team in the SBLive Oklahoma Top 25 rankings with Edmond Deer Creek likely to tumble after dropping two straight last week? And how does the recent shakeups involving the higher-ranked teams result in a severe drop in the poll? Stay tuned for that.

But also stay tuned for the next several weeks. There may be a few more unpredictable outcomes in Oklahoma high school baseball, leading up to the playoffs and especially during the postseason. 

After all, it's that unpredictability that makes baseball such an interesting and fascinating game to follow.