Barnsdall baseball snaps back from tragedy to make sizzling season run
Barnsdall Panther’s gather in memory of their teammate Tyson Townley, who died in a vehicle crash in May 2024. The Panther’s are 14-5 on the season.
PHOTO PROVIDED
By Mike Tupa
April 2, 2025
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT
Death and disaster during the past 11 years have not been able to intimidate the determination of the Barnsdall High School baseball team — or community.
Despite being hammered twice by unfathomable tragedy less than a year ago, the Panthers — and the city — have both climbed off the canvas and spit in fate’s eye.
This year’s Panther team has roared to a 14-4 record and appears poised to make a deep playoff run.
Barnsdall’s success has required more than great pitching, great hitting, great defense and great coaching — all four of which it enjoys in abundance.
It also requires a Brobdingnagian heart, a communal toughness and an unwavering belief in each other.
To put it simply, the journey has required granite resolve.
The first major blow took place on May 4, 2024, when popular sophomore Panther student-athlete Tyson Townley died in a vehicle crash on a county road. He was only 15.
“He had such a light and an energy that resonated with the whole town,” Barnsdall baseball coach Ryan Gott recalled during a recent interview with the Bartlesville Area Sports Report. “He’d be out on the field right now if he were with us. We miss him a ton. That one hurt really hard.”
On May 6, 2024, just two days after the heartbreaking accident— not nearly enough time for Townley’s family and friends, coaches, teammates and classmates, and others, to process their grief — a devastating EF4 tornado slammed into Barnsdall with rampaging fury.
Unleashing winds of up to 200 miles per hour, it ripped through a large portion of the community, demolishing whole houses or taking off roofs, crippling businesses, blasting churches, wrecking cars or wreaking other horrible havoc and confusion in this small community with a population hovering right around 1,000 people.
When it finally moved on the tornado had claimed two lives and had left in its wake approximately three dozen homes destroyed and their inhabitants scrambling to find shelter and basic necessities and others thrown out of work.
But Barnsdall residents immediately bounced up from the mat. They rolled up their sleeves — literally and emotionally — to begin to rebuild.
However, It’s always easier to recover from something as menacingly impersonal as a tornado than it is to bid good-bye to a friend.
Back on March 11 — just three weeks ago — Barnsdall called for a moment of silence, just before the home game against Rejoice Christian, to honor and remember Tyson Townley.
After the game — which Barnsdall won, 8-7, on a walk-off homer — the presence of Townley’s spirit stirred another kind of miracle.
“Rejoice’s coach came over to our dugout and he led a prayer with both teams and the family,” said Gott, characterizing it as a moment of healing.
Part of that healing process has been refusing to surrender and become a slave to grief. Part of it has been to rise above fate’s hardest blows and turn the tide from glum to glory.
That’s what the Panther baseball team has been doing.
The three senior pillars that have started since their freshmen year are Maverick Lanphear (catcher/pitcher), Bodie Clark (second base/shortstop) and Brohk Townley — the older brother of Tyson and the team’s mightiest power hitter.
A fourth senior — Braden Byers (cf) has started since his sophomore year.
“He’s our nine-hole hitter,” Gott said of Byers. “He has one of the best averages on the team. He loves it down there. He’s super fast and a great leader.”
Brohk Townley has boasted great power since his freshman year. As a sophomore he blasted a homer in five-straight games.
During last weekend’s Barnsdall tourney — won by the Panthers — Townley clobbered a circuit clout in every game, including a grand slam in the 16-2 championship game against Regent Prep.
Senior teammate Clark has hit in the leadoff spot all four years.
Lanphear and Andrew Cole rank at the top of the pitching staff.
Cole — who has hurled the most innings — is “a calming presence on the mound,” said Gott. “He hovers around 80 miles per hour with his fastball but he’s very accurate with his breaking stuff. He keeps kids at the plate off balance.”
Lanphear and Lincoln Gott both throw with more velocity, coach Gott said.
Three sophomores making a tremendous impact on the team’s success have been Braxton Willis, shortstop Gavin Wood and eight-hole hitter Tripp Barbee.
Willis “is very energetic,” coach Gott said. “He’s got five home runs; he had a walk-off home against Rejoice. He’s playing all over the place.”
Wood has worked his way into the two-hole batting spot and solidified the shortstop position.
“He has a great glove and a good arm,” said Gott. “He also throws hard on the mound.”
Barbee “is very steady in left field,” Gott said, adding he brings energize and vocal encouragement to the mix.
As a full team, Barnsdall has the skill, power, gloves and pitching to continue to compete at a high level. But winning is about more than physical tools.
Gott also focuses on the intangibles.
“I challenged the boys to have a good mindset every time we play,” he explained. “In baseball you can get in a lull. … But when you get to the playoffs, you can’t have a bad day.”
Although he didn’t put it this way, Gott’s comments suggested baseball can mirror real life.
Gott could have been just as easily referring to the response to the twin-tragedies on the same weekend 11 months ago.
“Every second is important because you never know what can happen,” Gott observed. “Baseball’s a funny game. It’s not fair sometimes. … It rewards those that are prepared.”
The city of Barnsdall and the Barnsdall High sports program couldn’t have been specifically prepared for what happened in the first weekend of May 2024. But the character and ethics already ingrained in the town and its youth have shone through since in gritty glory.
Not that it’s been easy slogging back. But determination and vision — along with faith in the aid of unseen power and faith in each other — are the fundamental factors in any miracle.