The summer season for the Ponca City Wildcats baseball team was a highly successful one.

The Wildcats were their league champions, going unbeaten in league competition.

Four team members were voted to the all Northwest Oklahoma Baseball Coaches Association team. The award recipients were TItan Bute, Teegan Hodgson, Cooper Leonard and Jaxon Testa.

The Wildcats had moderate success in the postseason winning the first two games in the playoffs before losing twice and being eliminated. In the opening round Tuesday, the Wildcats defeated Tonkawa 14 -2 and then came back the next day to defeat Kremlin 13-2. Playing later in the day Wednesday, Ponca City lost to Pioneer 10-6 and then on Thursday lost again to Pioneer 7-6 on a walk-off run in the last inning. Losing to Pioneer was no disgrace as Pioneer has one of the premier small school baseball programs in the state and went deep into the postseason this spring.

There are plenty of potential pitfalls in conducting a successful summer baseball program. Some baseball players opt to play on traveling teams based in larger cities. There is also potential conflict with job schedules, vacations, etc., which make it difficult to be assured there will be enough players on hand to play scheduled games. The Ponca CIty program is in the midst of a head coaching change, as former Head Coach Casey Love resigned at the close of the 2022 spring season. Jeremy DeNoya, with the assistance of Stoney Parks, have been coordinating the efforts this summer.

Participating in the summer program are players who anticipate being a part of the 2022-2023 team next spring.

The coaches have been pleased with this year’s team and have expressed their appreciation for those participating.