BASEBALL: BHS Bruins overcome heap of bad luck to reap a season-opening victory
Bartlesville High School head coach Cody Price walks to the mound during a game last year. The Bruins won their season opener against NOAH, 4-3. They host Sapulpa at 5 p.m. on Monday.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
By Mike Tupa
March 3, 2025
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT
If bad news were a forest Bartlesville High School baseball coach Cody Price would have been walking in tall timber last weekend.
Even so, Price’s Bruins bounced back from three blasts of ill fortune to edge Tulsa NOAH, 4-3, at Bill Doenges Memorial Stadium in the regular season opener Saturday.
The ominous umbra of adversity started at mid-week when Texas transfer players Josh Collins and Noah Collins — with Noah picked to be his starting varsity catcher — re-transferred away from Bartlesville.
That left Price just two days to re-shuffle his lineup. He called on Jaxon Zaun, one of last year’s catchers, to fill the vacancy left by Noah Collins’ departure.
But in Friday’s final preseason scrimmage, Zaun and Barrett Merciez both suffered injuries that kept them out of Saturday’s opener.
Bartlesville was down three or four starters in just two days when the alarm clock rang Saturday morning.
The third wave of woe concerned Price calling on three junior varsity players — all sophomores — to each make their unexpected and unplanned varsity debut Saturday.
Somehow it all worked out anyway for Price and his determined warriors.
Gritty pitching by Hunter Shea and Kaden Romesburg and a safety squeeze RBI by Romesburg in the bottom of the sixth highlighted Bartlesville’s scrappy performance — not to forget a RBI by Cooper Swaim in the bottom of the fifth in his debut with the Bruins after his transfer from Dewey High School.
Shea started on the bump and lasted into the sixth inning. With two runners on base and one out, Price made the pitching switch by putting Romesburg on the bump.
“He got out of it without giving up a run,” Price noted. “Kaden did some big stuff for us. … Hunter threw a great game. … Runs were hard to come by. The wind was blowing in and the ball wasn’t carrying. We executed our bunts really well.”
The three sophomores making their first varsity starts included Bryce Luelf at catcher, Kanin Romesburg and Cy Rigdon.
Price referred to their unanticipated initiation as “baptism by fire.” Price hopes to have Zaun and Merciez back in the lineup soon but doesn’t want to rush it until they’re healed.
Despite too many errors and growing pains the Bruins found the character to claw out the win — making Price 5-1 in season openers since 2019.
“An ugly win is better than a pretty loss,” he added.
Next up, Bartlesville plays host Monday at 5 p.m. to Sapulpa and eyes a Tuesday road trip to Owasso.