Tuttle caps dominant finish with payback title win

According to head coach Breck Draper, the Tuttle Tigers went to the state tournament expecting to finish what they had spent nearly a year building.

Tuttle closed the season 36-4, won its final 16 games and captured the Class 4A state championship with an 11-4 win over Mount St. Mary on May 16 at Shawnee High School.

The victory gave the Tigers the title, but it also gave them a full-circle finish. Mount St. Mary had handed Tuttle its first loss of the season, a 10-2 defeat on March 13. More than two months later, the Tigers got the rematch in the championship game.

“We were not going to be satisfied with anything except the state championship,” Draper said. “In the offseason, in the weight room, practice, preseason scrimmages, into the regular season, and then really the back half of the regular season, we really zeroed in on what we needed to be good at and what we needed to do.”

Draper said the championship standard began after last year’s loss to Blanchard in the State Championship.

He said the Tigers talked then about how Blanchard’s experienced players refused to let their season end short of a championship-level finish. Tuttle’s returning players took that lesson into the offseason.

“They didn’t say, ‘Hey, let’s go make the state tournament and then we’ll see what happens,’” Draper said. “They said, ‘We’re going to go win the thing.’ We’re going to do everything we have to do to go do that.”

The Tigers backed that goal with one of the most dominant finishing stretches in the state.

After a 2-0 loss to Ozark, Missouri, on April 10 at the Nike/Pro-Nine Festival, Tuttle did not lose again. The Tigers won their final 16 games and outscored opponents 167-24 during that run.

They were even sharper in the postseason.

Tuttle defeated Harrah 19-0, Clinton 12-2 and Harrah again 9-0 in regional play. The Tigers then swept Broken Bow 9-0 and 16-3 to reach the state tournament.

At state, Tuttle beat Lone Grove 5-0 in the quarterfinals, Sallisaw 8-2 in the semifinals and Mount St. Mary 11-4 in the championship game.

Draper said the Tigers’ preparation matched their talent.

“They were just so locked in, so dialed in,” Draper said. “Our coaching staff did a great job preparing these guys and making sure they knew everything that could come at them. I thought it was about as prepared as we’ve ever been as a staff. We left no stone unturned, and the guys are really good baseball players.”

That combination showed throughout the state tournament.

Tuttle never trailed in the kind of tight, desperate late-game situation that often defines championship weekends. Draper said the Tigers had three pitchers step up and finish what they started.

“When you have really good baseball players all playing selflessly, you get results in the state tournament like we got,” Draper said. “We had three outings. My three pitchers that pitched the entire game, they said, ‘Hey, I’m pitching and I’m not coming out.’ They all three stepped up huge for us, and then we obviously had some great offensive moments as well.”

Hunter Watson was one of the players who set the tone.

Draper said Watson missed time earlier in the year, then came back ready to handle a major workload in the postseason. He also gave the Tigers immediate offensive momentum.

“He just had an incredible state tournament,” Draper said. “Hitting a home run in the first inning of every game we played to get the pressure off of our pitching staff was unbelievably huge for us as far as confidence, and he just set the tone from the get-go.”

Draper also pointed to Jackson Johnson and Hudson Heathco as examples of players who fought through adversity to help Tuttle finish the season.

Johnson battled injuries on and off during the year before getting healthy in time for the postseason. Heathcock played the entire playoff run with a broken bone in his left hand.

“Every time he swung the bat, it was excruciating pain, but nobody outside of us would have ever known it because he never showed it,” Draper said of Heathco. “He never showed weakness, and he had some huge at-bats for us in the playoffs. He even hit a home run in the state tournament with a broken hand.”

Draper said the Tigers were disappointed in how they played in the first meeting. Watson started that March game but came out in the second inning with an oblique injury, forcing Tuttle to adjust quickly.

“We always respect our opponent, and Mount St. Mary is a great ball club,” Draper said. “It was a special group for them. They had two arms that were as good as anybody’s arms for the most part of the year.”

Even so, Draper said Tuttle entered the title game confident.

Traylon took the mound for the Tigers and delivered a complete-game performance against Mount St. Mary. He also went 4-for-4 at the plate in the championship game.

“We knew we had an advantage on the mound,” Draper said. “There’s no doubt. We had not even thrown Jackson Johnson in the state tournament, and he’s our closer and a guy that we thought for sure was going to have to get some innings for us. Traylon just took it to another level.”

Draper said there was natural anxiety because of the stage and opponent, but he trusted the group Tuttle had built.

“It was never about the other team for us,” Draper said. “We knew what we could do. Not to be arrogant, but I had no concern because I knew the people around us, and I knew the people in the clubhouse, and I knew who was taking the field that day.”

The Tigers will lose 10 seniors from the championship team. Draper said six will play college baseball and one will play college football.

The rest, he said, will be successful in whatever path they choose.

“You’re losing really, really good baseball players, but you’re losing 10 unbelievable locker room people,” Draper said. “Unbelievable high-character people and leaders in our clubhouse. They’re going to be really hard to replace. You don’t ever really replace them. You just hope that your younger guys can take what they did and try to replicate it within their own self.”

Tuttle will have major pieces back next season, including the pitcher who started and finished the state championship game and went 4-for-4 at the plate.

Draper also mentioned the return of Tuttle’s catcher Dakotah Mallory, middle infielder Mesa Dickerson, Dallin Pratt, Luke Dahlgren, Carter VanAuken, Kannon Henn, Parker Madison, Ryder Stangl and Treston Truitt among players who could help lead the next group.

“We’re going to lose some really, really big-time players that have played a ton of baseball for us,” Draper said. “But on the other end of it, we’re also going to have some really, really big-time players coming back and some guys that are going to turn into big-time players.”

For now, the Tigers get to celebrate a championship season that ended exactly where they planned for it to end.

“We’re excited to rest and celebrate, but we’re excited to really get back after it because there’s a lot of guys that want to go do the same thing,” Draper said. “They want that feeling as well. I won’t say we’re going to rebuild. We’re just going to kind of try to get reloaded.”

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